NASA finds X-ray dot linking to supermassive black hole growth
NASA just made a big breakthrough with the help of the Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope.
Scientists finally found an "X-ray dot" hiding inside one of those mysterious "little red dots" scattered across space, connecting these strange objects to how supermassive black holes grow.
As Raphael Hviding from the Max Planck Institute put it, this single X-ray object may be — to use a phrase — what lets us connect all of the dots.
Scientists peek inside ancient red dots
These little red dots are mostly 12 billion light-years away and date back to when the universe was super young.
Researchers think some little red dots may hide rapidly growing supermassive black holes wrapped in dense gas clouds that obscure their emissions.
For the first time, Hanpu Liu from Princeton University says scientists got a peek inside, which could provide stronger evidence that supermassive black hole growth is central to some of these ancient cosmic objects.