Object Brighter Than A Galaxy Could Be First-Ever Sighting Of A "Black Hole Star" That Explains JWST's Little Red Dots (iflscience.com)

While seeking galaxies in the early universe, JWST has spotted a plethora of objects since dubbed “little red dots." These existed soon after the big bang and must be tremendously bright for us to see them at this distance, leading to almost a thousand peer-reviewed papers in four years exploring their nature. The dots are of particular interest because they seem to contain inexplicably large black holes. The presence of these monsters so early in the universe's history is a bit of a mystery, as they shouldn't have had enough time to form by the mechanisms we are familiar with in modern galaxies. Dr Rohan Naidu at MIT and his colleagues were actually on an entirely separate quest, trying to weed out objects in JWST images called "mirages," because they are much closer than they appear. In the process, they found an object that isn't quite as distant as other little red dots but is stupendously bright and red. “When we see something very red in the universe, we often assume that it is surrounded by dust, like soot or ash,” said MIT Professor Robert Simcoe in a statement. “The same way that the wildfire smoke from Canada recently made...