Huor
22991
733
10
So basically, a key mission of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was to provide a way of looking so far away that, given the time it takes for light to travel the distance, would be like looking at the earliest moments of the universe.
Imagine their surprise when they discovered myriad "red dots." They couldn't figure those things out! But now it seems as if they're an entirely new type of astronomical phenomenon they're calling a "black hole star".
The way a star works is that nuclear fusion creates the heat and light that we see. This isn't the case of a black hole star, though. Instead, a black hole is surrounded by a vast, incredibly dense cloud of gas. The force of the black hole's gravity pulls in that gas with such force that it causes it to glow a bright red. Like, literally, when they look at this thing with a spectrograph, it doesn't emit other colours.
Just a very wild, very cool discovery.
Yeah! Science, bitch!
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/aug/12/astronomy-discovery-new-cosmic-object-black-hole-star
Gofuturself
Maybe we are looking at the end and not the beginning
YuffieK
It's like a nebula, but illuminated by the accretion disk radiation rather than a white dwarf or pulsar.
BishlamekGurpgork
Isn't that just a normal black hole with a hot accretion disk? Like, the gas around a black hole normally glows.
TheTojo15
WKYK was right? Everything is red?
wabitgirl
So is this support for, or evidence against gravastar theory?
Gods, I hope gravastars are real. They're so fucking weird and cool.
valen00
oooh I'd often idly wondered if something like that would work. Dangit I should have written something down and done some maths.
seniorcitizenfightclub
Foretold by Soundgarden
PocketCleric
Black hole stars (stars whos outer gasses are held up by hawking radiation pressure) have been around for decades. This is not new.
RElGNMAN
DefundIsraelTheGenocidalNation
Everything reminds me of her
blaghart
size of the entire solar system as in it's 2000AU in diameter?
FredGarvinMaleProstitute
Zalm
I wish we could have named the telescope after someone who wasn't a prolific homophobe
chaoswarrelt
Reminded me of this
foreverinchains
We haven't figured out what these little red dots are yet. While there are several proposed solutions, we don't have enough data yet to determine which, if any, is correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_red_dot_(astronomical_object)
ArchMagos
Yeah, thats really fucking weird. A black hole should form an accretion disk due to the conservation of angular momentum and frame dragging, plus the material falling in should be much hotter than simply red hot, and if the gas was shielding most of the light from the accretion disk, then we should have more than just red light as the spectral lines.
foreverinchains
The proposed model for LRDs being supermassive black holes is that they and their accretion disks are surrounded by an enormous cloud of gas and dust that's so dense it blocks most of the light from the accretion disk, and coupled with the stretching of the universe, all we see it a red dot.
A black hole will only form an accretion disk if there's enough matter close enough to it. Many black holes don't have them because they've either consumed or ejected anything nearby.
Radijsjes
I heard about these ages ago as a theoretical object. So cool that we've got evidence that they actually exist(ed)!
BishlamekGurpgork
I mean, they're basically a normal feeding black hole, just in a dense could of gas that diffuses the light like a lampshade.
CooCooCaChew
They've been theorize for a while and are really cool. Here's a video about them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeWyp2vXxqA
superalbatross
I read the article, are they surprised by its size? Blackholes have been known to make gas orbiting around them glow forever how is this any different other than them being big, which we also knew they were bigger in the early universe. Seems like a nothing burger.
wabitgirl
I think this is specifically weird in that you're ONLY seeing redshift colors, with no other luminosity? Normally, when black holes are ejecting matter from the accretion disc, you get quasars, which are a variety of colors, but from what I'm gleaning from the reading, this phenomenon is only producing red light, which is weird and different, and may have implication regarding our cosmological understanding. Then again, I'm not an astrophysicist, so fuck if I actually know.
wabitgirl
Yeah, reading through it again, the object is unique and different in that it has an energy/radiation signature that is akin to the intensity of a black hole (WAY beyond what stars can produce), but has a luminosity signature that is rather star-like, which is highly abnormal for a black hole (which are normally either invisible, or ejecting quasar level luminosity via electromagnetic jets). The exclusively red light production, with abrupt drop offs outside of certain wavelengths is also
wabitgirl
really atypical, indicating potential physics interactions that we are either unfamiliar with, or have not properly accounted for in our models. This could have implications in our understanding of the formation of super massive blackholes, and potentially the formation of new galaxies by extension, so it's possibly incredibly exciting. It could also just be us being bad at measuring stuff, which happens more than people want to admit.
turtleninja5
Voyager 1 is expected to cross one light-day from Earth in November of this year. 48ish years in operation.
q2grapple
By Georgia O’Keefe
CatMeme37
The image above is done by an artist. "Illustration: Rohan Naidu, University of Hawai'i." We don't really know what they look like. The actual image from the telescope is just a little red dot.
thevole
Everything reminds me of her
thedudeman519
Lmaoooooooo
StarBug
ToonMan4351
Nuclearun
Seriously! Black Hole Sun was RIGHT THERE! How could they get so close and still miss?
Huor
PERFECTION
duktayp
"quasi stellar" object = quasar .... So, ""black hole star" = "blosar"
layinginbedfeelinglikeaquesarito
Close, because the gravity is so strong everything is backwards, so “raolcalb”
BillyM00n
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-star
HYPEdriveMusic
I thought it was a Stevie Wonder album cover for a minute.
nimeton0
I'm getting a 'Songs In The Key Of Life' vibe from this image.
ItHappenedInThe20thCentury
what an amazing album, just WOW
thedudeman519
You can feel it all over !
TallynNyntyg
Looks like a geode!
drousnavat
There is a thing called an "Inverse Star" that is basically a black hole with no gravitation pull. At least theoretically.
3rdoption
I couldn't find anything about it. Care to post a link?
drousnavat
Saw it on a science channel show when I was in a doctor's office a couple years ago. So no link and I might be misremembering it. Then again that show also might not have been a factual show. It was on the Science channel tho.
Rayplays
Black holes are gravity wells. Maybe you're thinking about a white hole, which is theorized to be the eventuality of a black hole in which it's mass eventually repels. You may be thinking of neutron stars who's spin determines how often they pulse radiation. The spin of a super massive black hole turns it into a quasar that ejects material from it's accretion disk.
ReitnesTenought
How does that even work? If it has mass, it has a gravitational field.
BishlamekGurpgork
It's probably a misunderstanding of an extremal Kerr black hole - a theoretical model of a black hole spinning so fast that the surface gravity of the event horizon is effectively zero. It would not nullify the gravity it exerts outside the event horizon.
drousnavat
No idea. Just remember seeing it on some science channel thing at the doctor's office a few years ago. If I remember right, it is supposed to be a black hole that has no spin or like a reverse spin so it doesnt pull stuff in?
ReitnesTenought
In theory a black hole can have no spin but in practice as soon as it absorbs something it'll start spinning again afaik. In either case I'm not sure how that would stop gravity from working.
BishlamekGurpgork
There is a speculative model called an extremal Kerr black hole - never heard of "inverse star." Its spin is so extreme that the outward force from its spin and the pull of its gravity are balanced at the event horizon.
This means the SURFACE (if you can call it that) has net zero gravity, but that's not the same as having no gravity. Matter will still fall in, because the matter around it isn't orbiting it at the same speed that it spins.
It's likely impossible, because if you spin it a >
BishlamekGurpgork
little faster, you would have a naked singularity with no event horizon, and while the question is unresolved, it's likely that this is physically impossible.
spartanatreyu
Reality check: This is terrible sensationalized science communication. They're literally just describing a feeding blackhole. Nothing here is new.
eronth
It's explained poorly, but Black Hole Stars are something that is legitimately theorized as possibilities. The short version is that the core of a star is condensed enough to collapse but not the entirety of the star, you end up with a black hole core for the star and a feeding shell instead of a disk.
At least, in theory. Best I know this is a running theory for a while now and I haven't heard of anything that further confirms the existence of any.
eronth
The statement of "discovered a new type of star" seems bold, but I'm not informed enough to know how confirmed they think their findings are.
It's already been theorized, so it's not "new" in that regard. And, based on my reading, it's not confirmed so it's not exactly a firm "new discovery" or "newly observed", but again, I'm not an expert in that.
BishlamekGurpgork
Not exactly. Fusion isn't theorized to be the energy source producing this light. It's theorized to be a regular black hole's accretion disk, but surrounded by a cloud of obscuring gas that absorbs and re-emits the light, like a cotton balls used to make a light bulb into an artistic glowing cloud.
eronth
Oh interesting... which sounds even less new than discovering/verifying a black hole star, right?
BishlamekGurpgork
This is what the black hole stars are theorized to be; called that because it's a star-sized object lit by a black hole. It's not the leading theory on what the LRDs (literally Little Red Dots) are, though. I believe the leading theory is that they're a type of primordial galaxy - a galactic nucleus coming together. This also has problems, as they don't emit certain spectrums, EG X-rays.
archon325
Yeah, I'm no scientist, but my understanding is that stars are born and do fusion because of the large gravitational pressure it's under. It seems natural that if a black hole vacumed up enough gas that it would undergo fusion, even though it's not in the shape of a star.
spartanatreyu
Black holes cannot undergo fusion
archon325
I wasn't talking about the Black Hole itself, even if fusion was somehow happening inside it, the energy wouldn't be able to escape. I was talking about the stuff it was pulling in. On the way into the black hole there might be such a concentration of gas that it undergoes fusion, right?
spartanatreyu
Anything can undergo fusion outside a black hole if it's squeezed enough. You'll get that around ultra compact objects (white dwarves, neutron stars, black holes). Fusing within a black hole is impossible from a reference frame outside the black hole.
wabitgirl
Because standard models of fusion conditions break down under the gravity of a blackhole, right? Like the subatomic interactions no longer follow the rules of standard particle physics, meaning that you actually surpass the necessary pressure to perform fusion and move into strange matter or something?
BishlamekGurpgork
In theory, yes, but the theory here is that the accretion disk is creating most of the light, and the cloud of gas around it is filtering it.
Density would fall off quickly when the black hole began hoovering - on an astrophysics scale, the period where fusion would be actively continuing would be relatively short.
In addition, a star that becomes a black hole has typically exhausted fuseable elements, because the fusion itself is a counterbalance preventing the density you need.
Silver420Surfer
1.)How is it going to kill us? 2.)When is it going to kill us?
BishlamekGurpgork
If it did, it did so billions of years ago and we just haven't seen the outcome yet.
Silver420Surfer
Hell yeah!
Nukls
black hole sun
won't you come
iktome99
Rip Chris Cornell
Sageypie
Black hole star
There you are
chiefrunswithscissors
Emitting bright red liiiight
rosshell2718
To wash away the rain
RetrogradeLlama
Won't you come.
Huor
Won't you cooooome
PhotosStealSouls
(black hole suuuuun)
twoamartist
And wash away the raiiinnn?
Roune
Can’t. On antidepressants
Atwes
There’s a pill for that.
choppedliveraldente
Mixing pills and mental disorders is an absolute fucking hoot and a half. On this off that CUM AT ME BRO