Webb’s little red dots mystery 🌌 When astronomers first gazed into the depths of the early Universe using @esawebb, they were stunned to find galaxies that seemed more like cosmic bodybuilders than the fragile beginnings they expected. But thanks to new insights from Webb’s CEERS survey, we now know that some of these “massive” galaxies are actually deceiving us! The galaxies that appeared overly massive likely host black holes rapidly consuming gas. Friction in the fast-moving gas emits heat and light, making these galaxies much brighter than they would be if that light emanated just from stars. This extra light can make it appear that the galaxies contain many more stars, and hence are more massive, than we would otherwise estimate. When scientists remove these galaxies, dubbed “little red dots” (based on their red color and small size), from the analysis, the remaining early galaxies are not too massive to fit within predictions of the standard model. However, there are still ro...