- The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered hundreds of perplexing 'little red dots' in the early universe, appearing around 650 million years after the Big Bang.
- New theories suggest these dots could be black holes shrouded in thick gas, possibly representing a new object called a black hole star, but observations conflict with some predictions.
- JWST has also revealed ancient black holes that are too massive for their age, challenging theories of their formation and growth, including limits on accretion rates.
- Simulations explore mechanisms like super-Eddington accretion or direct collapse of gas clouds to explain rapid black hole growth, but conditions remain elusive.