Astronomers studying an unusually red source in James Webb Space Telescope observations proposed that it represents a previously unobserved kind of object: a black hole surrounded by gas so dense that the system radiates with star-like characteristics. The team named the object MoM-BH*-1 and described its interpretation in Nature.
The source lies in the direction of the constellation Cetus and is seen as it existed about 660 million years after the Big Bang. It was identified during the Mirage or Miracle survey, a project designed to investigate exceptionally distant galaxies. Researchers had already found the galaxy Mom-z14, dating to roughly 280 million years after the Big Bang, before turning to other targets in the telescope’s archive.
MoM-BH*-1 stood out as the reddest archived object examined by the team. Its spectrum contained mainly hydrogen and helium signatures, while its light dropped away sharply below a particular wavelength. This pronounced feature, known as a Balmer break, is commonly associated with dense gas absorbing photons in stellar atmospheres. The observed break, however, was more extreme than in familiar objects.
Dust can make astronomical sources appear red, but closer analysis did not support dust alone as the explanation. Simulations indicated that an extremely dense hydrogen envelope could reproduce the color and spectral behavior. The source’s extraordinary luminosity created another constraint: it emits about 100 billion times the energy of a known star, beyond what ordinary nuclear fusion could supply.
When the researchers added a central black hole to their models, they found a scenario consistent with the telescope data. In that interpretation, a black hole roughly 100,000 times the Sun’s mass powers radiation from a gas envelope extending across a region comparable in size to the Solar System. The object is so bright that it overwhelms the light of its surrounding host galaxy.
The conclusion remains an astrophysical interpretation based on observations and modelling, not a direct view of the central black hole. Even so, it offers a possible explanation for the many Little Red Dots visible in Webb deep-field images. None of the other examples identified so far is reported to match MoM-BH*-1’s brightness.
If the model holds for a broader population, these objects may represent an early, heavily shrouded stage in the development of supermassive black holes. Such black holes occupy the centres of most galaxies, including the Milky Way, and can influence when galaxies form stars. Further observations will be needed to test whether MoM-BH*-1 is the first member of a genuinely new class and how commonly the same mechanism accounts for other red sources.
