Overview

• Researchers report four very high redshift candidates from JWST JADES data—JADES-GS-z11-0, z13-0, z14-0 and z14-1—as consistent with dark-star models in a PNAS study.
• JADES-GS-z14-0 shows a tentative He II 1640 angstrom absorption feature at low significance (about S/N ~2), which the authors say would be a predicted signature of a supermassive dark star.
• ALMA observations indicate oxygen associated with JADES-GS-z14-0, implying metal enrichment that complicates a primordial dark-star interpretation.
• Astronomers note that alternative explanations, including supermassive primordial stars or recently proposed black hole star models, remain viable and must be distinguished in the data.
• The team is running simulations, automating searches across JWST datasets, and planning further JWST and ALMA follow-up to obtain higher signal-to-noise spectra and resolve competing models.