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A dark star is a hypothetical type of star that may have existed early in the universe before conventional stars were able to form and thrive.

The dark stars would be composed mostly of normal matter, like modern stars, but a high concentration of neutralino dark matter present within them would generate heat via annihilation reactions between the dark-matter particles. This heat would prevent such stars from collapsing into the relatively compact and dense sizes of modern stars and therefore prevent nuclear fusion among the 'normal' matter atoms 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 960 astronomical units (AU) in radius; its surface temperature would be around 10000 K. It is expected that they would grow over time and reach masses up to ${\displaystyle 10^{6}}$M_☉, 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 of gamma rays, neutrinos, and antimatter 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 extremely redshifted objects discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope.^[5] Their study suggested that three of these four, namely JADES-GS-z13-0, JADES-GS-z12-0, and JADES-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 the early universe, powered by dark matter annihilation.^[5] Their spectral analysis of the objects suggested that they were between 500,000 and 1 million solar masses (M_☉), as well as having a luminosity of billions of Suns (L_☉); they would also likely be huge, possibly with radii surpassing 10,000 solar radii (R_☉), far exceeding the size of the largest modern stars.^[5]

• Population III star
• Supermassive star
• Quasi-star
• Primordial black hole

• Siegel, Lee (2 Dec 2007). "Were the first stars dark?" (Press release). University of Utah.
• "Dark stars: The seeds of supermassive black holes?". 19 July 2019.
• "Webb May Have Spotted Supermassive Dark Stars | Sci.News". 15 July 2023.
• "Have We Seen the First Glimpse of Supermassive Dark Stars?". 28 July 2023.
• "Nancy Grace Roman Could Detect Supermassive Dark Stars". 23 June 2023.
• "Webb may have spotted "dark stars" made of annihilating dark matter". 17 July 2023.
• "Dark matter power: James Webb telescope may have proven the existence of dark stars". 16 July 2023.