Overview
- Researchers using JWST’s deep surveys identified a compact, very red source called MoM-BH*-1 that appears from about 660 million years after the Big Bang and resists normal stellar explanations.
- High-quality JWST spectroscopy shows an unusually strong Balmer break and almost no metal lines, a combination the team says points to an optically thick hydrogen screen rather than a normal star atmosphere.
- The source is far too bright to be powered by nuclear fusion, so the authors model it as a million‑scale black hole wrapped in a dense, turbulent hydrogen envelope roughly 10 to 100 astronomical units across.
- The paper reports tentative short-term brightening of about 30 percent over roughly two months and notes that continued time monitoring, deeper spectra, and multiwavelength observations are needed to confirm the black hole interpretation.
- If the model holds, similar shrouded accreting black holes could account for many of JWST’s so‑called little red dots and offer a mechanism for fast early black‑hole growth that helps explain billion‑solar‑mass quasars seen only a few hundred million years later.