New simulations suggest Webb’s Little Red Dots capture a rapid growth phase that could explain the early appearance of supermassive black holes.

Little Red Dots, the small, extremely red objects spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope in the early universe, may reveal how black holes grew so big, so quickly.

Astronomers have found supermassive black holes with masses millions or even billions of times that of the Sun less than 600 million years after the Big Bang. Explaining how they gained so much mass in that time has been difficult, and new simulations suggest the dots could represent the rapid growth needed to get them there.