A unique, X-ray-spewing black hole may help to confirm the enigmatic identity of " little red dots ," a curious class of objects that are observed mostly in the very early universe, approximately 12 billion light-years away.

Astronomers have sought to classify little red dots (LRDs) since the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ) first spotted them shortly after it began science operations in 2022.

Now, in a paper published March 16 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters , astronomers have described an object that may illuminate the murky nature of LRDs.

Formally known as 3DHST-AEGIS-12014 and colloquially called the X-ray dot (XRD), this object had remained hidden in a survey conducted by NASA 's Chandra X-ray Observatory more than a decade ago.…