Some of the mysterious pinpricks of light at the dawn of the Universe could be a type of object we've never seen before.

According to a new analysis of a "little red dot" (LRD) nicknamed The Cliff, these unexplained objects could be supermassive black holes wrapped in huge, dense clouds of gas, like an atmosphere surrounding a stellar core.

It's a very tidy explanation that solves a problem astronomers are struggling to reconcile: a 'break' in the LRDs' light that makes galaxies in the early Universe seem older than possible.

Related: Earliest Black Hole Ever Confirmed Could Explain Mysterious Red Dots

"We … conclude that the rest-optical and near-infrared continuum of The Cliff cannot originate from a massive, evolved stellar population with an extremely high stellar density," w

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