Overview
- A peer‑reviewed Nature paper led by University of Copenhagen researcher Darach Watson reports that the red point sources are compact supermassive black holes enshrouded in dense, ionized gas.
- Emission‑line diagnostics show missing UV and X‑ray components, indicating high‑energy radiation is absorbed and reprocessed by surrounding gas that imparts the distinctive red signature.
- The study revises mass estimates downward by roughly 10 to 100 times, with reported examples around about 10 million solar masses and emitting regions only a few light days or weeks across.
- Analyses indicate the objects are accreting near the Eddington limit, providing a credible route for rapid growth in the universe’s first billion years.
- The sources appear in JWST views from a few hundred million years after the Big Bang and are not seen about a billion years later, suggesting a brief evolutionary phase.