Aug 12, 2026 04:21 PM
(This post was last modified: Aug 12, 2026 04:57 PM by C C.)
(EDIT) Speak of the devil, with respect to the older article at bottom...
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Astronomers discover a brand-new type of astrophysical object: A black hole star
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1139692
KEY POINTS: Astronomers have discovered a “black hole star,” an extremely bright red spot in the early universe that appears to be a new type of astrophysical object. It resembles an enormous star, but its energy production is closer to what a black hole might generate. This finding could help solve the identity of other mysterious “little red dots” that have appeared in nearly every deep space image NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken to date. (MORE - no ads)
What if there's a star inside a black hole?
https://www.universetoday.com/articles/w...black-hole
EXCERPTS: The setup starts with an idea from last year. Certain exotic forms of dark matter, arranged in a halo with a particular relationship between pressure and density, can produce black holes with no singularity at the centre! These are so called ‘regular black holes,’ where the equations stay sensible all the way to the centre. Tan and Wang asked what happens if you drop an ordinary neutron star into the middle of one of these halos.
The answer, worked through the standard equations of stellar structure, is peculiar. Below a certain halo density, nothing dramatic occurs and you get a neutron star with a dark matter cloud around it, slightly squashed. Above a certain density, the whole thing collapses and no stable solution exists.
But between those two, something strange happens in the space just outside the star. A shell forms In one of their models, a shell forms running from about 10 to 12 kilometres out, with the star's own surface sitting at 8.5. Here the geometry flips and becomes that of a black hole interior. An event horizon, in other words, but one that closes over a star rather than being created by it. And inside, the neutron star simply carries on, regular, structured, entirely non-singular.
[...] The crucial point in this model is that nothing collapsed. The gravity making the horizon comes from the star and the halo combined, with the dark matter contributing roughly as much mass as the star itself. The team find the same result using two different descriptions of neutron star matter, which suggests it isn't an artefact of one particular assumption.
Now the caveat, which the authors state plainly and which deserves stating plainly here too. The dark matter densities this requires are far greater than anything astronomers actually expect dark matter to reach. This is not a claim about objects out there in the sky but more of a thought experiment with the mathematics filled in. It says the inside of a black hole need not be the end of physics. There is at least one solution in which it’s a place, with something in it! The challenge remains the same as with any black hole, they need to be detected and maybe one day one of these peculiar objects will be found. (MORE - missing details)
PAPER: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.06224
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Astronomers discover a brand-new type of astrophysical object: A black hole star
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1139692
KEY POINTS: Astronomers have discovered a “black hole star,” an extremely bright red spot in the early universe that appears to be a new type of astrophysical object. It resembles an enormous star, but its energy production is closer to what a black hole might generate. This finding could help solve the identity of other mysterious “little red dots” that have appeared in nearly every deep space image NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken to date. (MORE - no ads)
What if there's a star inside a black hole?
https://www.universetoday.com/articles/w...black-hole
EXCERPTS: The setup starts with an idea from last year. Certain exotic forms of dark matter, arranged in a halo with a particular relationship between pressure and density, can produce black holes with no singularity at the centre! These are so called ‘regular black holes,’ where the equations stay sensible all the way to the centre. Tan and Wang asked what happens if you drop an ordinary neutron star into the middle of one of these halos.
The answer, worked through the standard equations of stellar structure, is peculiar. Below a certain halo density, nothing dramatic occurs and you get a neutron star with a dark matter cloud around it, slightly squashed. Above a certain density, the whole thing collapses and no stable solution exists.
But between those two, something strange happens in the space just outside the star. A shell forms In one of their models, a shell forms running from about 10 to 12 kilometres out, with the star's own surface sitting at 8.5. Here the geometry flips and becomes that of a black hole interior. An event horizon, in other words, but one that closes over a star rather than being created by it. And inside, the neutron star simply carries on, regular, structured, entirely non-singular.
[...] The crucial point in this model is that nothing collapsed. The gravity making the horizon comes from the star and the halo combined, with the dark matter contributing roughly as much mass as the star itself. The team find the same result using two different descriptions of neutron star matter, which suggests it isn't an artefact of one particular assumption.
Now the caveat, which the authors state plainly and which deserves stating plainly here too. The dark matter densities this requires are far greater than anything astronomers actually expect dark matter to reach. This is not a claim about objects out there in the sky but more of a thought experiment with the mathematics filled in. It says the inside of a black hole need not be the end of physics. There is at least one solution in which it’s a place, with something in it! The challenge remains the same as with any black hole, they need to be detected and maybe one day one of these peculiar objects will be found. (MORE - missing details)
PAPER: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.06224