A team of astronomers has detected MoM-BH*-1, the most distant known object in the “black hole star” class, dating from an era when the universe was less than 660 million years old, after the Big Bang. The discovery could help explain the nature of the mysterious “little red dots” and shed light on how supermassive black holes were born and grew rapidly in the early universe.
The object was detected using the James Webb Space Telescope as part of the “Mirage or Miracle” survey (The Mirage or Miracle survey), designed to search for objects that appear extremely distant but may in fact be closer objects appearing as distant galaxies.
Jorryt Matthee, of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria and a member of the survey team, said the program targeted “high-risk” sources because they could lead to important discoveries or turn out to be overlapping objects in the image.
A black hole inside a gas cloud
Scientists describe MoM-BH*-1 as the best-known example to date of what they call a “naked black hole star,” an object that appears isolated, without an emerging galaxy surrounding it. The team believes that all of the observed light comes from gas accumulating around a black hole at the center of a massive cloud.
The gas cloud obscures the accretion process from direct view, but the resulting energy heats the surrounding gas and causes it to glow, making the object’s spectrum resemble those of cool, red stars, such as red giants.
The observed spectrum represents our best evidence yet for the presence of a gas envelope feeding a black hole in its early formation stage.
A model for explaining the “little red dots”
The discovery is significant because it could offer an explanation for the “little red dots,” some of which were first observed by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2022. Scientists found some of them at the centers of distant young galaxies, after light from some had traveled nearly 12 billion years to reach Earth.
Accumulating evidence suggests that these objects may be supermassive black holes growing rapidly inside enormous gas clouds. However, the difficulty of separating the black hole’s light from the faint light of the galaxy has kept their nature under debate.
MoM-BH*-1 is located close in space to a young galaxy with the same redshift, suggesting that the two may eventually merge. According to the models, this merger could occur in about 100 million years.
Simulations of the galaxy’s spectrum after its merger with the detected object showed a strong resemblance to the spectra of the little red dots found inside young galaxies. Thus, MoM-BH*-1 could provide a model for studying the black-hole-related component in those objects.
Matthee explained that using a “black hole star” as a model for the black component of the little red dots helps clarify a number of questions associated with them. He added that objects of this type, if found inside similar host galaxies, could become the central engines of quasars that are still forming.
From gas clouds to quasars
Recent observations of little red dots closer to Earth suggest that the gas clouds surrounding their black holes may be beginning to break apart, revealing the holes and the X-rays produced by gas accreting onto them. Scientists believe that continued growth of these holes and increasing brightness around them could turn them into extremely luminous quasars.
Naidu said that “astronomers have never lacked imagination,” referring to the many theories that have sought to explain how black holes reached enormous sizes in a short period. He added that “something remarkable must have happened in the early universe,” and that Webb now makes it possible to observe that era directly and test the proposed scenarios.
Testing early-universe hypotheses
Studying the origins of supermassive black holes and determining whether they emerged before the galaxies surrounding them were among the James Webb Space Telescope’s main scientific goals before its launch. According to Matthee, about 1000 papers and preprints addressed the “little red dots” during the past two or three years.
The study’s results were published in the journal Nature on 13 August 2026, providing new evidence as part of research aimed at understanding how supermassive black holes were born, how they grew rapidly and how they were related to the formation of the first galaxies.
