Overview
- The discovery, published in Nature on August 12, 2026, identifies MoM‑BH*‑1 as a new class of object that looks star‑like in size but emits about 100 billion times more light than a normal star.
- Deep JWST spectroscopy shows the strongest Balmer break ever measured and a spectrum dominated by hydrogen and helium with almost no metals, a pattern inconsistent with ordinary stars or dust reddening.
- Models fit an actively accreting central black hole of order 10^5 solar masses inside a dense, turbulent hydrogen envelope roughly the scale of the solar system, which can reproduce the observed light and spectrum.
- The team reports tentative short‑timescale brightening that would match active accretion and has secured additional JWST time beginning in December to test the variability, constrain masses, and probe the envelope structure.
- If confirmed and common, black hole stars would offer a pathway for rapid early black hole growth and provide a unified explanation for the many compact ‘little red dots’ JWST has found at cosmic dawn.