The early universe could be home to huge stars powered by dark matter annihilation instead of fusion – and the James Webb Space Telescope may have already found some
NASA/ESA
The James Webb Space Telescope may have spotted weird stars powered by dark matter instead of nuclear fusion. If these stars are really out there, it could solve three major cosmic mysteries in one fell swoop. Regular stars form when a cloud of dust and gas becomes so massive that it collapses in on itself, and the pressure and temperature in the centre are high enough to begin the process of nuclear fusion, wherein atoms slam together and merge into heavier elements. So-called dark stars wouldn’t have any fusion at all – in the early universe, they could form from similar clouds rich in.
“They’re very bizarre stars – in radius they’re around 10 AU [astronomical units, the distance between Earth and the sun], so they’re puffy beasts, and there’s no core,” saysat the University of Texas at Austin. “They’re relatively cool throughout, and because they’re so cool there’s nothing that’s preventing accretion onto them, so they grow – they can grow to a million solar masses, a billion solar luminosities, maybe even more.
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