In the violent heart of our Milky Way galaxy lies a supermassive black hole with a mass equivalent to four million suns. But although the gravitational maw gobbles up anything that gets too close, it can also set up conditions that allow for the birth of new stars just a few light years away, according to a new study. Lead researcher Elizabeth Humphreys says
the results, which uncovered what appear to be two young stars as close as seven light-years from the galactic center, were surprising, as that is "one of the last places ... you would expect to find stars forming" [Scientific American].
Gas clouds that approach a black hole are usually ripped apart by the intense gravitational forces, but the new finding
suggests that the molecular gas at the center of the Milky Way from which the stars form is denser than previously thought. The higher density gas ...
