Andrea Ferrara

The James Webb telescope peered into the early universe and saw a multitude of mysterious red dots. Their glow didn't resemble familiar galaxies or stars. The answer was unexpected: these are growing black holes, born without a stellar stage.

400 million years after the Big Bang, the James Webb Space Telescope noticed a bright spot near the galaxy GN-z11 — like a distant lighthouse whose light pushed through the primordial darkness.

The Universe at 700 million years old was a noisy construction site, just beginning to light up. Telescopes caught a signal from that distant epoch: the galaxy REBELS-25, massive and full of stellar fuel.