Mysterious Little Red Dots of the Early Universe | James Webb Space Telescope

Mysterious Little Red Dots of the Early Universe | James Webb Space Telescope

What are these little red dots (LRDs)? No one knows. Discovered only last year, hundreds of LRDs have now been found by the James Webb Space Telescope in the early universe. Although extremely faint, LRDs are now frequently identified in deep observations made for other purposes. A wide-ranging debate is raging about what LRDs may be and what importance they may have. Possible origin hypotheses include accreting supermassive black holes inside clouds of gas and dust, bursts of star formation in young dust-reddened galaxies, and dark matter powered gas clouds. The highlighted images show six nearly featureless LRDs listed under the JWST program that found them, and z, a distance indicator called cosmological redshift. Additionally, searches are underway in our nearby universe to try to find whatever previous LRDs might have become today.

A panel of six images shows a red dot in the center of each image. The instrument that took the image is listed on each image, along with a z number that is the cosmological redshift.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, JWST; Dale Kocevski (Colby College)
Release Date: Dec. 24, 2025

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