The dark stars would be composed mostly of normalmatter, like modern stars, but a high concentration ofneutralinodark matter present within them would generate heat via annihilation reactions between the dark-matter particles. This heat would prevent such stars fromcollapsing into the relatively compact and dense sizes of modern stars and therefore preventnuclear fusion among the 'normal' matteratoms from being initiated.[1]
Under this model, a dark star is predicted to be an enormous cloud of molecular hydrogen and helium ranging between 1 and 960astronomical units (AU) in radius; itssurface temperature would be around 10000K. It is expected that they would grow over time and reach masses up toM☉, up until the point where they exhaust the dark matter needed to sustain them, after which they would collapse.[1][2][3]
In the unlikely event that dark stars have endured to the modern era, they could be detectable by their emissions ofgamma rays,neutrinos, andantimatter and would be associated with clouds of cold molecular hydrogen gas that normally would not harbor such energetic, extreme, and rare particles.[4][2]
In April 2023, a study investigated four extremelyredshifted objects discovered by theJames Webb Space Telescope.[5] Their study suggested that three of these four, namelyJADES-GS-z13-0,JADES-GS-z12-0, andJADES-GS-z11-0, are consistent with being point sources, and further suggested that the only point sources which could exist in this time and be bright enough to be observed at these phenomenal distances and redshifts (z = 10–13) were supermassive dark stars in theearly universe, powered by dark matter annihilation.[5] Their spectral analysis of the objects suggested that they were between 500,000 and 1 millionsolar masses (M☉), as well as having a luminosity of billions ofSuns (L☉); they would also likely be huge, possibly with radii surpassing 10,000solar radii (R☉), far exceeding the size of thelargest modern stars.[5]
