Watching history being made - Harvard Gazette

"For more than two years, astronomers have been puzzled by a mysterious discovery from the ancient universe - hundreds of objects known as "little red dots" so far away the light had to travel billions of years to become visible to scientists. First detected by the James Webb Space Telescope, these unusually compact vestiges from the cosmic dawn have sparked intense debate: Are they densely packed galaxies? Or do they contain massive black holes?"

""Telescopes are time machines," said Fabio Pacucci, a Clay Fellow in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and first author of the new paper. "If you look at the moon, you see it as it was one second ago, and if you look at the sun, as it was eight minutes ago. If you look at these little red dots, it was billions of years ago.""

Astronomers have detected hundreds of compact objects called "little red dots" whose light traveled billions of years to reach telescopes. The James Webb Space Telescope identified these unusually compact vestiges from the cosmic dawn, prompting debate over whether they are extremely dense galaxies or host massive black holes. A new theory proposes that the objects are nascent galaxies forming within slowly spinning dark matter halos, implying dark matter halo spin can shape early galaxy formation. Dark matter halos are not directly observed; their presence is inferred from star and gas motions and gravitational lensing. Studying these objects may illuminate early-universe evolution.

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