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PBS Space Time

Season 2026 · Episode 16

JWST May Have Discovered a New Cosmic Object: The Black Hole Star

0.015mAugust 27, 2026

Gigantic black holes existed in a cosmic eyeblink after the Big Bang. That should be impossible. The James Webb Space Telescope has either made the problem much worse, or solved it by discovering the first Black Hole Star.

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Episodes

Episode 1The Universe Itself Might Be Hiding the Gravity Particle From Us
Episode 2This Particle Solved Everything. We Just Found Out It Isn't Real
Episode 3The Universe Tried to Hide the Gravity Particle. Physicists Found a Loophole.
Episode 4The Universe Is Racing Apart. We May Finally Know Why.
Episode 5Most of Reality Is Invisible. We May Finally Be About to Reveal It.
Episode 6Something Disturbing Happens When You Solve Einstein's Equations This Way
Episode 7Earth’s Core Should Be Impossible. A New State of Matter Explains It.
Episode 8We Found Galaxies Too Old for the Universe
Episode 9We Thought Black Holes Ended in Singularities. They Might End In a Frozen Big Bang.
Episode 10We’ve Been Searching for Aliens the Wrong Way. That’s All About To Change. . .
Episode 11We Thought Black Holes Created Event Horizons. It Might Be the Opposite
Episode 12The Quantum Experiment That Breaks Time
Episode 13The Universe Has Been Expanding Since the Big Bang. Just Not How We Thought.
Episode 14We Thought All Black Holes Came From Stars. We May Have Been Wrong.
Episode 15There's Something Massive Hiding Behind the Galaxy's Strangest Star
Episode 16JWST May Have Discovered a New Cosmic Object: The Black Hole Star