Astronomers may be close to solving the mystery of the enigmatic "little red dots" that populated the ancient universe. When studying a spiral galaxy nicknamed the "Saguaro", researchers found a compact, bright red core that closely resembles these distant objects, but with something Webb typically cannot see around it: an entire galaxy.
When the team simulated how the Saguaro would look from a much greater distance, its spiral structure essentially disappeared, leaving only the bright red core visible. The findings suggest that the mysterious red dots observed in the early universe could be complete spiral galaxies whose overall structure is too faint to be detected at those extreme distances.
