Astronomers Discover the Existence of a Black Hole Star

When Soundgarden Wrote “Black Hole Sun,” they may have inadvertently been onto something.

In a new paper in Nature, scientists have chronicled a “black hole star” that’s the size of our solar system and glows bright red in the depth of space. The findings are based on observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, which continues to change how astronomers think about the cosmos.

Researchers focused on some of the most distant observable phenomena in the universe, which appear to be something like a star in disguise. Based on the light they emit, they appear to share some characteristics with giant stars, but astronomers suspect they are actually black holes shrouded in an extraordinarily dense and luminous gas.

These hypothetical objects have been dubbed black hole stars, and the new research, published Wednesday, lays out the case for them.

The signal that’s at the center of the study...

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