Astronomers have discovered a new object that will help shed light on the mysterious “little red dot” first discovered by the James Webbspace Telescope (JWST) in 2022.
A new discovery object called “The Cliff” suggests that the small red dot represents an entirely new class of cosmic objects known as “black hole stars,” researchers say. This newly hypothesized object is essentially a black hole that feeds very quickly, which illuminates the thick coco of the surrounding gas and shines like a star.
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However, all of these theories have evolved, so it is unclear whether dots are exotic objects or simply stages of galaxies or black holes growing. When they were first discovered, the small red dot was called the “space breaker.” Thus, astronomers have found explanations of what they are, beyond the standard types of known objects.
They proposed two models. “One possibility is that small red dots are very large, compact galaxies, with strong star formation, and very large star density in the core,” says Fabio Pakcci, an astrophysicist at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who was not involved in the new research. This scenario suggests that small red dots are small, dense galaxies, rich in stars, and involve exotic, unprecedented processes.
“Other possibility is that they host huge black holes in their centers, often appearing “overmacy” compared to the mass of their galaxy’s stars,” he told Live Science in an email. In both cases, redness is due to the enormous dust surrounding the object.
The second explanation means that the small red dot is a galaxy carrying a huge black hole in its center, like the active galactic nucleus (AGN). These black hole-fueled galaxies are quite different from other types of AGNs found in the early universe known as quasars. Very bright objects are equipped with large ultra-high Massive black holes and can be easily detected because they are not blocked by dust. The connections between these two types of populations remain unknown.
“Both explanations push the limits of current understanding of early galaxy evolution,” Pacucci said.
“Cliff” – Hanger
In a new study published September 10th in Astronomy & Astrophysics on September 10th, a team of astronomers led by Anna Degraf of the Max Planck Institute saw a unique little red dot that existed 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang.
This little red dot took us almost 12 billion years to reach us, but was discovered among many other small red dots identified as the red unknown.
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In light of this object, researchers noticed a very sharp jump in brightness called a Balmer Break. Although this kind of rise is common in the light of different objects, the types of sharpness seen in the light of this object could not be explained by large galaxies or typical active galactic nuclei, the researchers found. They identified it as an exaggerated version of Little Red Dot, and was called “cliffs” due to the rapid rise in the spectrum.
This extraordinarily powerful feature made astronomers wonder if they had seen something entirely new. The brightness of the object suggests a very energetic source, and De Graaff explained that Balmer breaks are derived from dense hydrogen gas at certain temperatures. These two tips led to the “black hole star” hypothesis.
“The black hole stars are [feeding] De Graaff explained. When the black hole accumulates surrounding material, it emits a lot of light, and heats the gas and shines, thus making it look like a star.
“Of course, the important difference is that normal stars are driven by nuclear fusion. A black hole star can be thought of as a hot object wrapped in an Ultrathick blanket.
“The ‘black hole star’ hypothesis is certainly intriguing,” Pakcci said. “This work is interesting as it attempts to bridge the unknown observational features of small red dots with such theoretical ideas.”
Other small red dots may have similar signatures on cliffs that may have been undetected due to restrictions on observations, Pacucci said. However, the black hole star hypothesis is still in its first stage. More observations are needed to test the robustness of this scenario, and monitoring of these objects can help distinguish between scenarios, Pacucci noted.
“We still don’t know how they will evolve into the number of black holes they see today,” De Graf pointed out. “The number of small red dots must be in a short-lived stage, as the number of small red dots decreases towards later cosmic ages.” The team then uses JWST to study bright little red dots to understand the detailed structure of black holes stars.
In fact, if the small red dot is a black hole star, you could solve another puzzle. If black holes stars can grow at very fast rates, they can explain the emergence of super-large black holes at very early stages in the universe.
The essence of the small red dot remains a mystery. If more coco black holes are discovered in the universe, researchers can investigate whether the small red dot is a truly exotic black hole star, a stage of the growth of a giant black hole, or simply a stage of galaxy evolution.
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