Dark Matter Powers Hypothetical Stars

You'd think the most powerful space telescope ever built would answer questions, not create more puzzles. Yet when the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) peered back to the cosmic dawn—the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang—it found galaxies that shouldn't exist, black holes too massive to explain, and strange red objects that defied classification.

Now scientists think they might have an answer. And it's delightfully weird: stars powered not by nuclear fusion, but by dark matter.

What Are Dark Stars?

Dark stars are hypothetical objects unlike anything we've confirmed in the universe. Regular stars shine because hydrogen atoms smash together in their cores, fusing into helium and releasing energy. Dark stars would work differently. They'd be powered by dark matter particles annihilating each other inside the star's core.

These aren't "dark" because they don't shine. Quite the opposite. A dark star could grow to a million times the mass of our Sun and shine a billion times brighter. They're called dark stars because their energy source is dark matter—the mysterious substance that makes up about 85% of all matter in the universe but refuses to interact with light.

The theory goes like this: A few hundred million years after the Big Bang, clouds of hydrogen and helium collapsed inside dense pockets of dark matter called microhalos. As the gas compressed, dark matter particles got squeezed together too. When these particles met their antimatter counterparts, they annihilated, releasing tremendous energy. This energy would heat the gas enough to prevent further collapse, creating a stable but bizarre object.

Unlike regular stars, which burn out their fuel and die, dark stars could keep growing as long as dark matter kept flowing in. They'd be massive, bright, and composed mostly of hydrogen and helium—just like the first generation of normal stars, but fundamentally different under the hood.

Three Mysteries, One Solution

In January 2026, physicist Cosmin Ilie from Colgate University and his collaborators published research suggesting dark stars could explain three separate cosmic puzzles that JWST uncovered.

First, the "blue monsters." These are exceptionally bright, compact galaxies from the early universe that contain almost no dust. Before JWST, models predicted the first galaxies should be smaller and dimmer. These blue monsters broke the rules. But if some of those bright spots aren't galaxies at all—if they're individual dark stars—the observations suddenly make sense.

Second, the overmassive black holes. JWST found supermassive black holes in the early universe that are simply too big. There hasn't been enough time since the Big Bang for them to grow so large through normal processes. Take galaxy UHZ1, located 13.2 billion light-years away. Its central black hole couldn't have been seeded by regular stars collapsing. But a dark star collapsing after exhausting its dark matter fuel? That would create exactly the kind of massive seed needed.

Third, the "little red dots." These compact objects from cosmic dawn emit light in puzzling ways. They're bright but dustless, and they produce almost no X-ray radiation—strange for objects that should be powered by matter falling into black holes. Some of their light spectra show unusual features that match what dark star theory predicts.

The Smoking Gun

In 2023, Ilie's team identified three dark star candidates based on their brightness and color: JADES-GS-z13-0, JADES-GS-z12-0, and JADES-GS-z11-0. These objects existed when the universe was only 3% of its current age. Their properties matched dark star predictions better than they matched conventional explanations.

By 2025, the team had spectroscopic data—detailed information about the specific wavelengths of light these objects emit. Two of them showed helium absorption features in their spectra. This is significant. When dark matter particles annihilate, they produce specific patterns in how elements like helium absorb light. Finding these signatures is like finding a fingerprint.

"Some of the most significant mysteries posed by the JWST's cosmic dawn data are in fact features of the dark star theory," Ilie said.

It's not proof yet. These objects could still be explained by exotic combinations of conventional stars and black holes. But the fact that one theory explains three independent mysteries is compelling. Scientists call this elegance—when a single explanation solves multiple problems at once.

Why This Matters Beyond Astronomy

If dark stars are real, they're not just interesting cosmic curiosities. They're laboratories for studying dark matter itself.

We've never directly detected a dark matter particle despite decades of searching. Experiments deep underground, particle accelerators, and satellites scanning for dark matter signals have come up empty. We know dark matter exists because of its gravitational effects on galaxies and galaxy clusters, but we don't know what it's made of.

Dark stars could change that. By studying their properties—how bright they are, how they evolve, what signatures they leave in their light—scientists could work backward to determine what kind of particles make up dark matter. Do the particles have a certain mass? Do they annihilate in specific ways? Dark stars might answer questions that laboratory experiments can't.

This is a complementary approach to traditional dark matter searches. Instead of trying to catch individual particles on Earth, we'd be observing their collective behavior in the early universe, preserved in light that's traveled for over 13 billion years.

The Road Ahead

Dark stars remain hypothetical. The evidence is suggestive but not conclusive. More spectroscopic observations are needed, particularly looking for additional signatures that would distinguish dark stars from conventional objects.

JWST will continue observing the cosmic dawn, and each new data release could strengthen or weaken the case. Other telescopes, both in space and on the ground, will contribute. Scientists will also refine their models, making more precise predictions about what dark stars should look like.

The beauty of this hypothesis is that it's testable. Dark stars should have specific properties—particular brightness patterns, chemical signatures, and evolutionary paths. As observations improve, we'll either find these signatures or we won't.

If we do find them, it would be revolutionary. We'd have discovered an entirely new type of astronomical object and gained a powerful new tool for understanding dark matter. We'd also solve several embarrassing problems with our models of how the first galaxies and black holes formed.

If we don't find them, that's valuable too. It would tell us something about dark matter—perhaps that it doesn't annihilate in the ways we thought, or that the early universe was different than our models suggest.