Mystery Of Young Stars Near Black Holes Solved

August 22, 2008

The mystery of how young stars can form within the deep gravity of black holes has been solved by a team of astrophysicists at the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

The team made the discovery after developing computer simulations of giant clouds of gas being sucked into black holes. The new research may help scientists gain better understanding of the origin of stars and supermassive black holes in our Galaxy and the Universe. The new discovery is published in the journal Science August 22, 2008.

Until now, scientists have puzzled over how stars could form around a black hole, since molecular clouds - the normal birth places of stars - would be ripped apart by the black hole’s immense gravitational pull.

However, the new study by Professor Ian Bonnell (St Andrews) and Dr Ken Rice (Edinburgh) found that stars appear to form from an elliptical-shaped disc, the remnant of a giant gas cloud torn apart as it encounters a black hole.

Solar mass molecular cloud falling towards a black hole. (Credit: Image courtesy of Science and Technology Facilities Council)

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Posted in Science and Technology, Space Exploration