{"id":656323,"date":"2026-08-25T21:19:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T21:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/656323\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T21:19:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T21:19:17","slug":"mysterious-little-red-dots-could-be-tiny-galaxies-with-giant-black-holes-at-their-hearts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/656323\/","title":{"rendered":"Mysterious \u2018Little Red Dots\u2019 Could Be Tiny Galaxies with Giant Black Holes at Their Hearts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mysterious objects spotted in the early Universe may not be isolated points of light after all. A new analysis of images of 217 \u2018little red dots\u2019 from the NASA\/ESA\/CSA James Webb Space Telescope suggests they sit inside remarkably compact, star-forming galaxies.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Little<\/a><\/p>\n

Little red dots may reside in small galaxies with total masses equivalent to around one billion times that of the Sun. Image credit: Zhang et al., doi: 10.1038\/s41550-026-02945-z.<\/p>\n

\u201cLittle red dots<\/a> (LRDs) are small, red objects seen at far distances from Earth,\u201d Wuhan University astronomer Xuheng Ding and colleagues said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, the nature of LRDs and the source of their light remains unclear<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPrevious research has found signs of material around some of these objects at ultraviolet wavelengths, possibly indicating the presence of galaxies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, there has been little evidence of this material in optical light (light that human eyes can see), which gives a clearer view of stellar mass.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the study, the astronomers performed an image stacking analysis of 217 LRDs and detected faint extended emission around these objects.<\/p>\n

Modelling of the data indicates that this emission likely comes from star-forming galaxies, with LRDs residing in their centers as supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n

The galaxies have average radii of just 685 light-years, making them about 2.5 times more compact than other star-forming galaxies of a similar mass seen at a comparable period in the Universe\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

The findings suggest that LRDs are not simply single points of light but likely exist within compact star-forming galaxies, which helps to explain their origin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis work provides direct observational evidence for the existence of LRD host galaxies at rest-frame optical wavelengths and offers new insights into the stellar buildup of these systems within the first billion years after the Big Bang,\u201d the researchers said.<\/p>\n

Their paper<\/a> was published August 24, 2026 in the journal Nature Astronomy.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Y. Zhang et al. Extended components of little red dots in the rest-frame optical. Nat Astron, published online August 24, 2026; doi: 10.1038\/s41550-026-02945-z<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mysterious objects spotted in the early Universe may not be isolated points of light after all. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[3514,15441,9697,18,6145,7443,19,17,144127,1024,133,11186,18406,231967,6552,15450],"class_list":["post-656323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-black-hole","tag-csa","tag-early-universe","tag-eire","tag-esa","tag-galaxy","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-little-red-dot","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-star","tag-star-formation","tag-starburst-galaxy","tag-supermassive-black-hole","tag-webb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117158240756883267","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656323","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=656323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}