A cosmic object spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope has flummoxed astronomers. Now, a research team has studied hundreds of these "little red dots" and found clues about their identity.

When Pagan and DePasquale first receive the images, they appear in black and white. The colors are added to the image later, as the data from the various filters are translated into the spectrum of visible light, Pagan explained. The longest wavelengths appear red, while the shorter wavelengths are blue or purple.

"We think every dense, dusty region that we see, and most of the ones we don't see, look like this on the inside — we just have never been able to look inside them before."