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Astronomers discover a brand-new type of astrophysical object: A black hole star
Astronomers discover a brand-new type of astrophysical object: A black hole star
The mashup of a black hole and an enormous star has never been seen before and could explain the mysterious little red dots often found in deep-space images.
Jennifer Chu<br>MIT News
Publication Date:
August 12, 2026
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Astronomers have discovered a “black hole star,” an extremely bright red spot in the early universe that appears to be a new type of astrophysical object. It resembles an enormous star, but its energy production is closer to what a black hole might generate.
Credits:
Image: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT
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Stars (left) can be thought of as a dense ball of gas powered by nuclear fusion at their centers. Black holes (center) typically grow by consuming matter via a pancake-like accretion disk. Black hole stars (right) represent a new kind of object — nascent black holes enshrouded in dense gas such that they effectively radiate in a star-like manner. The accreting black hole, as the power source, plays the role of nuclear fusion, and the dense surrounding gas acts similarly to a pseudo-photosphere.
Credits:
Image: iStock; Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT
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In these James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images, the black hole star stands out as a little red dot. Such little red dots are extremely common in JWST images.
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Image: Courtesy of the researchers
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Caption:
Astronomers have discovered a “black hole star,” an extremely bright red spot in the early universe that appears to be a new type of astrophysical object. It resembles an enormous star, but its energy production is closer to what a black hole might generate.
Credits:
Image: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT
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Astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have spotted an extremely bright red spot in the early universe. The object resembles an enormous star, spanning the size of our solar system. But it also is putting out 100 billion times more energy than any known star can physically produce. In fact, such energies are closer to what a black hole might generate.<br>The curious combination suggests that the red spot is an entirely new type of astrophysical source. The astronomers are calling it a “black hole star.”<br>In a paper appearing today in the journal Nature, the team presents their analysis of the new object, which they discovered using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The telescope spotted the bright red dot in the very early universe, just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.<br>The scientists conclude that the most likely explanation for the strange red dot is that it is a mashup of a black hole and a star — a combination that has never been observed until now. The object is likely a hugely dense cloud of gas, powered not by standard nuclear fusion, but by a central black hole.
Stars (left) can be thought of as a dense ball of gas powered by nuclear fusion at their centers. Black holes (center) typically grow by consuming matter via a pancake-like accretion disk. Black hole stars (right) represent a new kind of object — nascent black holes enshrouded in dense gas such that they effectively radiate in a star-like manner. The accreting black hole, as...