A black hole is giving birth to stars, Nasa finds - The Independent

A black hole has been ‘ giving birth to stars in a nearby dwarf galaxy.

Nasa’s Hubble Space Telescope spotted one such black hole in the galaxy known as Henize 2-10, which is 30 million lightyears away.

Amy Reines, the researcher who published the first evidence of a black hole in the galaxy in 2011, was also the lead scientist on the new paper.

“From the beginning I knew something unusual and special was happening in Henize 2-10, and now Hubble has provided a very clear picture of the connection between the black hole and a neighboring star forming region located 230 light-years from the black hole,” she said.

A paper describing the findings, ‘Black-hole-triggered star formation in the dwarf galaxy Henize 2-10’, is published today in Nature.

The black hole in the dwarf galaxy Henize 2-10 is smaller and the material that flows out of it does so more gently, however.

“At only 30 million light-years away, Henize 2-10 is close enough that Hubble was able to capture both images and spectroscopic evidence of a black hole outflow very clearly.

The new study of the black hole by Hubble could also help provide better detail on how such supermassive black holes are formed.