Outlandish deep space hybrid looks like a star, feels like a black hole

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Astronomers who observed using the Webb Space Telescope have discovered a peculiar object from the dawn of the Universe, one that is stabilized in a cocoon of dense gas, shines like a star and feeds like a black hole.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a puzzling deep space phenomenon from the universe's frozen beginnings a weird object in deep space that looks like a star on the outside but behaves like a supermassive black hole on the inside.

Located 13 billion light-years away (dating back to just a few hundred million years after the cosmic Big Bang) this one of a kind cosmic anomaly shines a blue light on the strange class of objects known as "Little Red Dots" (LRDs). First thought to be fuzzy clusters of old stars surrounded by heavy metal dust, a new study shows they are actually surrounded by vast cocoon of dense, "cool" hydrogen gas.

A voracious black hole is feasting on whatever gas comes near to it in the middle of this cosmic cocoon. As the gas falls into the black hole it speeds up and heats up beyond any sensible temperature, emitting prodigious amounts of radiation. To us, this gas envelope is glowing with an almost constant, red light almost indistinguishable from that of a giant star's surface. For years, astronomers have failed to explain how supermassive black holes got so big so soon after the Big Bang. Primary seeds grown in dense, fatter cradles mated themselves to predicted gas reservoirs, and could feast unrestrained on much of the stardust without dispersing the cloud around them.

By uncovering the secrets of these ancient hybrids, JWST is revolutionizing the way we think about the coevolution of the first galaxies and black holes. What looks on the surface like a quiet, glowing star has turned out to be a cosmic monster that is rewriting the tale of the universe's birth.

✍️Aditya Sharma

Scholar from St. Xavier's College Mumbai, INDIA