Astronomers say NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope may have spotted the universe\u2019s first \u201cdark stars,\u201d primordial bodies of hydrogen and helium that bear almost no resemblance to the nuclear fusion-powered stars we\u2019ve come to know.<\/p>\n
As detailed in a recent paper<\/a> published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team suggests that the very early days of the universe, mere hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, may have been home to supermassive dark stars, which were powered by dark matter that eventually led them to self-destruct.<\/p>\n \u201cSupermassive dark stars are extremely bright, giant, yet puffy clouds made primarily out of hydrogen and helium, which are supported against gravitational collapse by the minute amounts of self-annihilating dark matter inside them,\u201d said study lead and Colgate University astrophysicist Cosmin Ilie in a statement<\/a>. <\/p>\n Dark matter is the invisible, hypothetical substance that\u2019s believed to make up approximately 25 percent of the universe. Despite its expected abundance, scientists have yet to directly observe or detect it, since its existence is inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter.<\/p>\n The existence of supermassive dark stars could explain why the JWST is finding bright and unexpectedly common galaxies<\/a> in the furthest reaches of the universe. The supermassive black holes that result from these dark stars<\/a> could also account for the formation of distant quasars, which are extremely bright galactic nuclei powered by black holes at the centers of galaxies.<\/p>\n The theory behind dark stars was first devised in the late 2000s. Since then, researchers have suggested that they could be the result of \u201cWeakly Interacting Massive Particles,\u201d a leading candidate for dark matter<\/a>, that are believed to annihilate themselves and generate heat in a phenomenon that appears as brightly shining stars. <\/p>\n A few hundred million years after the Big Bang would have allowed for the right conditions for these dark stars to form, the researchers suggest.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the first time, we have identified spectroscopic supermassive dark star candidates in JWST, including the earliest objects at redshift 14, only 300 [million years] after the Big Bang,\u201d said coauthor and The University of Texas at Austin astrophysicist Katherine Freese, in the statement.<\/p>\n \u201cWeighing a million times as much as the Sun, such early dark stars are important not only in teaching us about dark matter but also as precursors to the early supermassive black holes seen in JWST that are otherwise so difficult to explain,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n