Astronomers have discovered a new type of astrophysical object they call a "black hole star" — an extremely bright red spot in the early universe that resembles a giant star but produces energy on the scale of a black hole. The finding, reported in the journal Nature, was made using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The object, designated MoM-BH*-1, was spotted in the very early universe, just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. It appears as a red dot, roughly the size of our solar system, but its energy output is astonishing: 100 billion times greater than any known star can physically produce. Such energies are more typical of a black hole.

The team, led by Rohan Naidu of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI), concludes that the most likely explanation is a combination never before observed: a black hole embedded in a dense cloud of gas that mimics a giant star. The object is likely powered not by standard nuclear fusion but by a central black hole.

"Our picture of this object is evolving very rapidly," said Naidu, a NASA Hubble Fellow and Pappalardo Fellow at MKI. "We think there is a central black hole that is 100,000 times as massive as the sun. And around this black hole, there would be this very extended envelope of gas that looks like a star the size of the solar system. It's huge."

Mirage or Miracle?

The discovery emerged from a survey called "Mirage or Miracle" (MoM), designed to find the most distant, earliest galaxies. The name reflects a puzzle that has emerged from JWST observations: many extremely bright galaxies have been seen at very early times, when they seemingly should not have formed so quickly.

"There's been this puzzle of many bright galaxies showing up at extremely early times," Naidu commented. "What we found was that what looks like an extremely bright early galaxy, also known as a 'miracle,' in some cases actually could be a 'mirage.'"

While examining JWST images, the team noticed a red dot that stood out. Such "little red dots" have appeared in most of JWST's deep-space images, and they have become a major topic of debate.

"These little red dots seem to be everywhere in the early universe but essentially disappear by the present day," Naidu said. "What exactly these objects are has been one of the most debated topics of the JWST era."

The object's red color likely comes from dust. "When we see something very red in the universe, we often assume that it is surrounded by dust, like soot or ash," explained co-author Robert Simcoe, director of MKI. He used an analogy: wildfire smoke from Canada can make the sky over Boston look red. The same effect, he suggested, might be at work here.

But the data revealed something unusual. The object's light showed a Balmer break — a feature in the spectrum that is the deepest ever observed — which rules out ordinary stars as the primary source. In addition, the light contained almost no signature of metals, only hydrogen and helium.

Simulations showed that a dense screen of hydrogen could explain the red color and the Balmer break, but not the extreme brightness. Only when the team incorporated an active, accreting black hole did the models match all the observations. The result: a central black hole about 100,000 times the mass of the sun, surrounded by a hydrogen cocoon roughly the size of the solar system.

"You have something that looks a bit like a star but is 100 billion times brighter," Naidu said.

A solution to the 'little red dots' mystery?

If confirmed, the black hole star could offer a unified explanation for the many little red dots seen across the early universe. In most cases, such objects may be black hole stars embedded in ordinary early galaxies — but in the case of MoM-BH*-1, the black hole star outshines its host galaxy entirely.

"Every little red dot is consistent with being a black hole star, embedded in a generic early galaxy," Naidu said. "But what is special about MoM-BH*-1 is, the black hole star is essentially completely outshining its surrounding host galaxy, such that we're seeing pure black hole star light."

The team's findings are detailed in the paper "A gas-enshrouded and gas-reddened black hole at cosmic dawn," published in Nature with DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10846-4. The work was carried out by researchers at MIT, including co-authors Wendy Sun '26 and collaborators, and was republished by MIT News and other outlets.

The discovery opens a new chapter in the study of the early universe, offering a possible answer to one of JWST's most puzzling observations — and a new type of object for astronomers to seek out in the vast red reaches of cosmic dawn.