Little Red Dots frequently reveal clumpy morphologies, some of these may be active black holes

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Many of the Little Red Dots (LRDs) show signs of hosting actively growing supermassive black holes (AGNs), which appear overly massive compared to their host galaxies. This raises one of the central puzzles in modern astronomy: how could such giant black holes already exist when the Universe was only a few billion years old? The problem was first highlighted with the discovery of rare luminous quasars in the distant Universe, but their scarcity made it difficult to study them in detail. ‘The discovery of LRDs is changing this,’says Pierluigi Rinaldi. ‘The more abundant population JWST provides, allows us to explore these cosmic giants statistically for the first time.’

The team studied 99 LRDs, and found that about 30% are not simply compact dots when observed in the ultraviolet.Instead, they reveal disturbed or clumpy structures, in stark contrast to their smooth, point-like appearance at optical wavelengths. Because these galaxies are so far away, their optical light is stretched, or “redshifted,” into the long-wavelength channel of JWST, where the resolution is not sharp enough to see structure, so they look like simple dots.

https://www.astronomie.nl/nieuws/en/little-red-dots-frequently-reveal-clumpy-morphologies-and-some-of-these-also-bear-the-hallmarks-of-active-black-holes-4687