Astronomy

Black Holes or Black Hole Stars? Astronomers Spar Over Webb Telescope's Little Red Dots

Charlie Wood explains the debate over James Webb's mysterious little red dots: whether they are standard supermassive black holes or black hole stars—colossal hydrogen shells powered by hidden black holes—and what that would mean for how the first big black holes formed.

Article · Research · Astronomy · Astrophysics · Science

'Fingerprints' inside the Sun could reveal if it once swallowed a planet

A new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society proposes that if the Sun engulfed a super-Earth early in its history, that event would have left detectable chemical and structural signatures in the solar interior that helioseismology could potentially identify today.

Research · Astronomy · Solar System · Planetary Science · Astrophysics