Stars with black holes are found by the James Webb Telescope
A team of astronomers, led by Vasily Kokorev, from the University of Texas at Austin, has identified multiple evidence that GLIMPSE-17775 - a small red dot located in the universe - is a black hole wrapped in a cocoon of gas.
The research published by NASA last Wednesday (10) analyzed the deepest spectrum ever obtained from a small red dot in space. The discovery was found by the James Webb Space Telescope.
The device is the same one that made the initial discovery of this type of object, in 2022. Now, the new GLIMPSE-17775 mapping is helping to better understand this type of star.
"I believe that part of the scientific community is converging on a singular view: that the little red dots can be explained by models of stars with black holes. But none of the previous little red dots had all the evidence in the same place," said Kokorev, lead author of the study.
"With GLIMPSE-17775, we can test these models due to the depth and incredible extent of the spectrum of this source", added the scientist.
Discoveries about "stars with black holes"
Soon after Webb began scientific operations, the telescope discovered a mysterious new type of object in the universe: abundant red objects that emerged about 600 million years after the Big Bang.
Scientists have since explored several explanations for these small red dots, including the stellar black hole scenario.
A series of circumstances made it possible to discover this new and complex spectrum of a small red dot, known as GLIMPSE-17775, which is more distant than the galaxy cluster and is magnified by gravitational lensing.
The result of the new study on this new object was the identification of more than 40 spectral lines of this small red source, which represents the most detailed spectrum of a small red dot ever obtained.
"When we first saw the spectrum, it was like having all the pieces of a puzzle spread out on the floor," said Kokorev. "We took each piece of the puzzle, measured the lines, and started combining the different pieces into a mosaic. Maybe some pieces didn't seem like anything at first, but then some of them came together and we realized there was something there."
The spectroscopic data collected by Webb contains multiple pieces of evidence supporting the interpretation that the small red dot GLIMPSE-17775 is a star with a black hole.
"Looking ahead, I'm eager to dig deeper and learn about what powers the central engines of these little red dots. While we believe it's a black hole, there are other interesting theories being proposed, which is exciting. Maybe in a year or two, we'll have the definitive answer as to what powers these sources," the research author explained.
Source: CNN