Black Hole Stars: The Strange New Objects JWST May Have Found at the Dawn of the Universe
For decades, astronomers have divided the universe into familiar categories. There are stars, powered by nuclear fusion. There are galaxies, enormous collections of stars, gas, dust, and dark matter. And there are black holes, regions where gravity has become so extreme that not even light can escape once it crosses the event horizon. But what if nature can create something that looks like a star while being powered by a black hole? That is the extraordinary possibility behind the emerging idea of “black hole stars” —objects in which a rapidly growing black hole is buried inside an enormous, extremely dense envelope of gas. And in 2026, this idea moved from an intriguing theoretical explanation to one of the most exciting interpretations of observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) . The story begins with some of the strangest objects JWST has discovered: tiny, intensely red sources that became known as “little red dots.” At first, astronomers weren't sure wha...