Signal Farthest 'Black Hole Star' Ever Found Could Solve JWST's Little Red Dot Mystery

Summary

A study published August 12, 2026 in Nature, led by MIT researcher Rohan Naidu using the James Webb Space Telescope's 'Mirage or Miracle' survey, identified an object called MoM-BH*-1 from roughly 660 million years after the Big Bang. The object radiates about 100 billion times more energy than any known star can produce through nuclear fusion alone. Researchers interpret it as a newly proposed hybrid category, a 'black hole star,' consisting of a central black hole roughly 100,000 times the mass of the sun enveloped in a solar-system-sized cloud of hydrogen gas. Since JWST began operating in 2022, it has spotted numerous unexplained ultra-bright early-universe objects dubbed 'little red dots,' and the team's simulations suggest many of these may be black hole stars embedded within early galaxies. Unlike other cases where host-galaxy light obscures the core, MoM-BH*-1 completely outshines its galaxy, giving scientists an unobstructed view of pure black hole star light for the first time. Naidu called the nature of these 'little red dot' objects one of the most debated topics of the JWST era.