Scientists working with the James Webb Telescope have reported the discovery of three unusual objects, which may be called dark stars. The term itself has been around for a long time in theoretical astrophysics, but it sounds deceptive: these objects are not dark at all and are not even stars in the usual sense. However, it conveys the essence of the phenomenon – their light is produced not by fusion reactions but by the energy of dark matter, the nature of which remains a mystery. The opening is reported by the Conversation portal.
Dark matter does not interact with light, meaning it cannot be seen directly. Its particles are thought to be electrically neutral and are their own antiparticles. When colliding, such particles annihilate each other, releasing energy. If the density of dark matter is high enough, destruction occurs regularly – this is what, according to modern models, can “fuel” dark stars.
This idea is related to one of the main questions of astrophysics: how the first stars appeared. According to the traditional scheme, primordial clouds of hydrogen and helium are compressed under the influence of gravity, heat up and trigger thermonuclear fusion reactions. But back in 2008, astrophysicists suggested that dark matter might play a much more active role. In dense regions of the early Universe, destructive energy could heat gas and delay the onset of fusion reactions, creating unusual star-like objects that glow from dark matter and can last much longer than regular stars.
Such objects must be ancient, have a deep red color in the spectrum due to cosmic displacement, and be almost completely devoid of heavy elements. According to models, they could be huge – their radius reaches dozens of astronomical units, and their mass in some cases can reach millions of solar units.
These are the signatures seen by the James Webb telescope. Some objects at record distances turned out to be brighter and more massive than standard models of early galaxies allowed. In a recent paper, researchers reported that three such light sources could fit the model of supermassive dark stars. Of particular concern are the unusually high helium concentrations, a signature that may indicate heating due to dark matter annihilation rather than fusion.
If the existence of such objects is confirmed, it could help understand the origin of supermassive black holes. Light dark stars, when dark matter is exhausted, will turn into normal stars. And supermassive dark stars, in theory, have the potential to collapse directly into massive black holes, becoming the seeds of future giants – such as the black holes at the centers of galaxies. This could explain why some massive black holes formed so early, such as the object in the galaxy UHZ-1, which existed half a billion years after the Big Bang.
