Science1 hSeptember 25, 2026, 18:15

Webb Telescope Reveals Class of 'Little Red Dots' in the Early Universe

A University of Texas at Austin team won the 2026 Gizmodo Science Fair for research on 'little red dots,' a newly discovered class of early-universe objects. Analysis of GLIMPSE-17775, magnified by gravitational lensing, supports the 'black hole star' hypothesis: a rapidly growing black hole wrapped in dense gas.

Gizmodo

Open source

GLIMPSE-17775 was observed for 30 hours, yielding signal equal to 80 hours without lensing
The red dots are a million times more luminous than any known star
The objects suggest black holes grew fast 500 million to 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang
Findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal

#Webb

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