Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and D. Kocevski (Colby U.); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

A team of astronomers sifted through James Webb Space Telescope data from multiple surveys to compile one of the largest samples of “little red dots” (LRDs) to date. The team started with the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey before widening their scope to other extragalactic legacy fields, including the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) and the Next Generation Deep Extragalactic Exploratory Public (NGDEEP) survey.

From their sample, they found that these mysterious red objects that appear small on the sky emerge in large numbers around 600 million years after the big bang and undergo a rapid decline in quantity around 1.5 billion years after the big bang. Spectroscopic data of some of the LRDs in their sample, provided by the Red Unknowns: Bright Infrared Extragalactic Survey (RUBIES), suggests that many are accreting black holes. However, further study of these intriguing objects is required.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-101

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

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