From almost the moment it came online in 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope has been

rewriting our understanding of the universe, in particular the early universe.

Because it's beyond our distorting atmosphere, in the steady, clarifying cold of space, well shielded from stray light

and outfitted with the latest sensors, the web lets us see farther than we've ever seen before,

and that means it sees further back in time because of the time it takes for light to reach us,

and, you know, because the universe is expanding. In particular, though, the web is able to give us our first clear look

at the first billion years of our nearly 14 billion-year-old universe.

And it's a deeply weird place.

In the telescope's data, scientists are seeing strangely bright early galaxies

with all sorts of strange galactic shapes that we don't

see in the more recent parts of the observable universe. But one of the strangest things the

telescope spotted are hundreds of so-called little red dots. They're early, they're red, they're

smaller than the Milky Way, and they're spinning very, very fast.

So what the hell are they?

Welcome to the Quanta podcast where we explore the frontiers of fundamental science and math.

I'm Samir Patel, editor-in-chief of Quantum Magazine.

One of these little red dots in particular, called QS-O-1, is beginning to provide some answers,

and many more questions, and in the process is rewriting our knowledge of the early universe entirely.

Here to speak with us today about this is Quanta physics writer Charlie Wood,

who wrote a recent story about

QS-O-1 called A Single Naked Black Hole Rewrites the History of the Universe. Welcome back to the show,

Charlie. Hey, Samir. Happy to be here. As always, let's start with what's the big idea? What are we

...