JWST finds unusual black hole in the center of the Infinity Galaxy: 'How can we make sense of this?'

An image of the Infinity Galaxy as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope .

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered an oddball galaxy, dubbed the Infinity Galaxy, that could be host to a "direct collapse black hole." That is, a black hole originally created directly from a vast cloud of collapsing gas and dust rather than a dying star.

The Infinity Galaxy gets its name from the fact that its shape resembles an infinity symbol (a sideways 8) with two red lobes or "nuclei." This shape is thought to have arisen because the Infinity Galaxy was formed as two disk galaxies engaged in a head-on collision.