The Universe dotted with small red dots, a new enigma for astronomers

Lost in the immensity of space, small red dots fuel the curiosity of researchers. Several theories attempt to explain their origins.

A new category of celestial objects?

The universe is full of surprises that we discover little by little. Technological advances now allow us to detect previously invisible phenomena, such as these mysterious little red dots.

They were observed by the James Webb Space Telescope who was searching for the first moments of the universe.

Imagine astronomers’ surprise when they discovered hundreds of red dots dotting the ancient cosmos. First spotted in 2022, they get their name from their tiny size in images and the red light they emit.

They caused confusion from the start: too compact to be galaxies and too atypical to correspond to black holes. Since then, the research carried out by astronomers has begun to be refined.

We thus reached a consensus. These red dots would belong to a whole new category of celestial objects. Called LRDs (for “Little Red Dots”), they would in reality be a sort of hybrid between a star and a black hole.

Concretely, the researchers believe that an active black hole is located at the center of each LDR. It would be enveloped in a thick and very hot layer of gas, making it glow like a star.

This layer of gas would radiate in the red, allowing us to see celestial objects. But this does not explain how LRDs were formed or how they evolve.

Some suggest that red dots could evolve into galactic nuclei. A recent study has indeed revealed an LDR surrounded by eight galaxies neighbors.

Enough to think that the mysterious little red dots could be the seeds of the galaxies we know today.

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