LRDs in the early universe (Little Red Dots)

[Charmonium]

If you have any interest in particle physics, cosmology or any of their ilk, you'll be interested in this article

The freckled universe

There’s a new class of cosmic object in town. And it might just overturn our understanding of black holes and galaxy evolution.

www.symmetrymagazine.org

It's especially notable since the phenomenon is completely novel - a very strange and exciting new class of phenomena.

Here's the article's intro:

Astronomers knew the James Webb Space Telescope would reveal new things about the cosmos. The most powerful space telescope ever built, JWST can look deeper into the universe—and thus farther back in time—than humans had ever seen.

JWST launched in December 2021 and started science operations about six months later. And it wasn’t long before the telescope delivered on its promise.

When data started coming in as part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey, CEERS, astronomers noticed something unusual: The early universe is freckled with small, red galaxies that they’d never seen before.

These came to be known as “little red dots.” Their properties were so strange that they were deemed an entirely new class of cosmic object.

And the more we learn about them, the more befuddling they seem. “Every time we think we understand something [about LRDs], they surprise us again by not having the properties we expect,” says Jenny Greene, a professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University.

BTW, this is from the latest issue of the digital magazine, Symmetry -

A joint Fermilab/SLAC publication

Fermilab also publishes several digital newsletters, but if you were to pick just one, Symmetry is the clear favorite.