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Monday, November 23, 2009

Photo: Black Holes Can Spawn Large, Odd Stars, Model Suggests


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A computer simulation shows the final stage of a starmaking cloud as it falls toward a supermassive black hole. A portion of the cloud formed a disk around the black hole, which quickly fragmented to form 198 abnormally large stars.

An August 2008 paper describing the results of the simulation suggests that such a process could explain two unusual populations of big, young stars near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Image courtesy Science/AAAS