{"id":475749,"date":"2026-05-09T03:05:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/475749\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T03:05:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:05:15","slug":"nasa-says-strange-red-dots-in-sky-are-an-unknown-class-of-object-that-looks-like-a-huge-evil-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/475749\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Says Strange Red Dots in Sky Are an Unknown Class of Object That Looks Like a Huge Evil Eye"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a fresh twist in the mystery of the \u201clittle red dots<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0Astronomers say they\u2019ve found a new specimen, which they\u2019re calling an \u201cX-ray dot,\u201d that suggests these crimson specks are a type of never-before-seen \u2014 and improbably extreme \u2014 stage of supermassive black hole evolution.<\/p>\n

The breakthrough, which they report in a new study<\/a> published in\u00a0 The Astrophysical Journal Letters, came from data taken by NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory. By comparing old Chandra images with new ones taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, they found that one little red dot was emitting x-rays, a telltale emission of black holes. An official artist\u2019s impression, above, portrays it as resembling a giant evil eye surveilling the cosmos.<\/p>\n

\u201cAstronomers have been trying to figure out what little red dots are for several years,\u201d lead author Raphael Hviding of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany said in a NASA statement<\/a>. \u201cThis single X-ray object may be \u2014 to use a phrase \u2014 what lets us connect all of the dots.\u201d<\/p>\n

The little red dots are a class of luminous and unbelievably massive objects that existed in the universe\u2019s infancy, but are nowhere to be seen today. Until the James Webb Space Telescope came online in 2022 and began peering into the ancient universe with unprecedented clarity<\/a>, no one even knew they existed. Most reside around 12 billion light years away, with some spotted when the universe was less than a billion years old.<\/p>\n

The dots have evaded scientists\u2019 attempts at a simple explanation ever since. They\u2019re too massive to be stars, clearly, but also too compact to be a galaxy at only a few hundred light years across. Many astronomers suspected that some kind of rapidly growing supermassive black hole must be at the heart of them, but until now, none of the hundreds of little red dots showed even the faintest trace of x-ray emissions. They were also strangely dim; a feasting supermassive black hole typically surrounds itself in a swirling ring of hot matter, like water circling a drain, which shines intensely.<\/p>\n

But the discovery of the \u201cX-ray dot\u201d changes things. It adds considerable credence to the idea that the little red dots are what some astronomers are calling a black hole star, in which a supermassive black hole imprisons itself in a cloud of gas so dense that it resembles the outer layers of a stellar object. The dense cloud would also obscure the black hole\u2019s emissions, explaining their absence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we confirm the X-ray dot as a little red dot in transition, not only would it be the first of its kind, but we may be seeing into the heart of a little red dot for the first time,\u201d co-author Hanpu Liu of Princeton University in New Jersey said in the NASA statement. \u201cWe would also have the strongest piece of evidence yet that the growth of supermassive black holes is at the center of some, if not all, of the little red dot population.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on space:<\/strong> Scientists Detect Atmosphere on Planet-Like Object Beyond Pluto<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a fresh twist in the mystery of the \u201clittle red dots.\u201d\u00a0Astronomers say they\u2019ve found a new specimen,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[18,19,17,5923,5925,1024,133,451,6552],"class_list":{"0":"post-475749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-james-webb-space-telescope","12":"tag-little-red-dots","13":"tag-nasa","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space","16":"tag-supermassive-black-hole"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116542408344845794","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}