Overview

• Researchers using JWST observed a faint “little red dot” dubbed QSO1 dating to roughly 600–700 million years after the Big Bang, surrounded by a small, chemically pristine halo dominated by hydrogen and helium.
• The team inferred the object’s mass by analyzing its light and measuring a rotation curve, concluding the central black hole outweighs its tiny environment.
• Media reports give conflicting mass figures for QSO1, variously citing about 50 million solar masses or around 50 solar masses, underscoring measurement uncertainty.
• The authors propose QSO1 could be a primordial black hole formed in the universe’s first moments, a scenario that would invert the usual galaxy-first growth picture.
• The study is posted on arXiv and awaits peer review, with further JWST follow-ups already in progress and experts noting that confirmation would carry major implications for cosmology and fundamental physics.