Hyderabad-born MIT astronomer Rohan Naidu, who dropped out of engineering at 18 & loves Test cricket, is behind the 'Black Hole Star' discovery

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have identified an extraordinarily bright red object from the early universe that could represent a previously unknown type of astrophysical source: a “black hole star”.

At the centre of the research is Rohan Naidu, a Hyderabad-born astronomer and lead author of the study. Naidu is a NASA Hubble Fellow and Pappalardo Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

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The object, named MoM-BH-1*, appears to be roughly the size of our solar system but is estimated to be about 100 billion times brighter than an ordinary star. The researchers believe its extraordinary energy could be coming from a central black hole surrounded by an enormous envelope of dense hydrogen.

The study, published in Nature, could also shed light on the mysterious population of “little red dots” repeatedly observed by JWST in the early universe.

Who is Rohan Naidu?

According to his profile on the MIT website, Rohan Naidu's research focuses broadly on the first galaxies that formed after the Big Bang.

His work seeks to understand when these early galaxies emerged, how they contributed to the reionisation of hydrogen between galaxies and how they produced the elements that eventually became the building blocks of life.

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Naidu approaches the study of early galaxies from two directions. Using JWST, he studies extremely distant galaxies directly, looking back towards the earliest stages of the universe.

He also studies the Milky Way's ancient history using data from the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite, investigating some of the oldest stellar systems that have become part of our galaxy.

Rohan Naidu grew up in Hyderabad

Naidu's journey into astronomy took an unconventional turn.

According to his MIT biography, he grew up in Hyderabad, India, and at the age of 18 dropped out of engineering school.

In what his MIT profile describes as a "Bollywood-esque plot twist", he bought his first-ever plane ticket and joined the founding class of 150 students at Yale-NUS College in Singapore.

It was there that he developed an interest in astronomy.

How Rohan Naidu became an astronomer

Naidu first explored astronomy by studying blazars in the Chilean Andes with Professor Charles Bailyn. He also spent time as an exchange student working with Dr Iva Momcheva and Professor Pascal Oesch in the van Dokkum group at Yale.

He later pursued a PhD at Harvard under Professor Charlie Conroy.

For his doctoral research, Naidu studied the farthest reaches of the Milky Way as part of the H3 Survey, looking for ancient galaxies that had been absorbed into our own galaxy over cosmic history.

His research has since focused increasingly on galaxies in the early universe, including some of the most distant objects that can be observed with JWST.

Rohan Naidu and the possible ‘black hole star’

Naidu is the lead author of the study examining MoM-BH*-1, an extremely bright red object observed when the universe was only a few hundred million years old.

The object initially appeared to be a distant, unusually bright galaxy. However, its light contained several features that made the researchers question that interpretation.

“Our picture of this object is evolving very rapidly,” Naidu was quoted as saying in MIT News.

The researchers believe the most likely explanation is a central black hole surrounded by a vast envelope of gas.

“We think there is a central black hole that is 100,000 times as massive as the sun. And around this black hole, there would be this very extended envelope of gas that looks like a star the size of the solar system. It’s huge,” Naidu said.

What is MoM-BH*-1?

The object, designated MoM-BH-1*, was discovered through a survey called Mirage or Miracle (MoM), which searches for some of the earliest and most distant galaxies.

While examining JWST observations, the team noticed a source that was both unusually red and exceptionally bright.

The object did not behave like a typical star or galaxy. Its brightness, colour and spectral characteristics led the researchers to investigate whether they were looking at an entirely different type of source.

Why is the object called a ‘black hole star’?

The researchers' simulations suggest that MoM-BH*-1 could consist of a black hole surrounded by an extremely dense cloud of hydrogen.

The black hole would provide the enormous energy output, while the surrounding gas would make the object appear more like a giant star.

The central black hole is estimated to be around 100,000 times the mass of the Sun, while the surrounding gas envelope could extend to approximately the size of our solar system.

Why is the object so unusually bright?

One of the biggest mysteries surrounding MoM-BH*-1 is its extraordinary brightness.

The researchers estimate that the source is around 100 billion times brighter than an ordinary star. Nuclear fusion, the process that powers stars such as the Sun, cannot account for such an enormous energy output.

“You have something that looks a bit like a star but is 100 billion times brighter,” Naidu said.

“That means you can’t be powering this by nuclear fusion, which is the energy source that sits at the heart of all the stars we have,” he added.

An actively feeding black hole, however, can release enormous amounts of energy as it accretes surrounding matter.

Scientists found a deep ‘Balmer break’

Another clue came from the object's spectrum.

The researchers observed an unusually deep Balmer break, a feature associated with dense gas absorbing certain wavelengths of light.

“The break we observed in this object is the deepest break we have ever observed in any object, ruling out ‘ordinary’ stars as the source,” Naidu said.

This led the team to consider whether the source could possess an enormous stellar-like atmosphere unlike anything previously observed.

MoM-BH*-1 contains little evidence of heavier elements

The object's chemical composition was also unusual.

Its light contained almost no clear signatures of metals or elements other than hydrogen and helium.

“It was truly singular in so many ways,” Naidu said.

The researchers then used simulations to investigate whether a dense hydrogen envelope surrounding a powerful energy source could reproduce the unusual characteristics detected by JWST.

Could a hydrogen envelope hide a black hole?

The simulations suggested that an extremely dense layer of hydrogen could make the object appear red without requiring large quantities of dust.

“We started to ask: Could you make something that red using just hydrogen, without any dust?” Robert Simcoe, director of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, was quoted as saying in MIT News.

“To our surprise, it turns out you can, if you have an extremely dense screen of hydrogen, so dense that it looks more like the surface of an enormous star than a wispy interstellar nebula,” he added.

The researchers then introduced an accreting black hole into their models.

The resulting simulations provided the closest match to the JWST observations, supporting the black hole star interpretation.

Could this explain JWST’s ‘little red dots’?

The discovery could be important beyond MoM-BH*-1 itself.

JWST has detected numerous compact, mysterious objects known as “little red dots” in the early universe. Their nature remains one of the major questions raised by the telescope's observations.

“These little red dots seem to be everywhere in the early universe but essentially disappear by the present day,” Naidu said.

“What exactly these objects are has been one of the most debated topics of the JWST era,” he added.

The researchers suggest that black hole stars could potentially explain at least some of these mysterious objects.

Why MoM-BH*-1 stands out

The researchers have named the object MoM-BH-1*, with the designation referring to the MoM survey and “black hole star — one”.

MoM-BH*-1 appears to be particularly unusual because it is bright enough to overwhelm the light from its surrounding host galaxy.

“Every little red dot is consistent with being a black hole star, embedded in a generic early galaxy,” Naidu said.

“But what is special about MoM-BH*-1 is, the black hole star is essentially completely outshining its surrounding host galaxy, such that we’re seeing pure black hole star light,” he added.