NASA's Hubble Spots Black Hole Burping Out Baby Stars
NASA recently used Hubble to study a faraway black hole, and what they found is pretty amazing. Since launching in 1990, Hubble's proven to be one of the best space exploration tools in existence. It's provided invaluable insight about the universe, uncovered new galaxies, and captured jaw-dropping photos that would otherwise be impossible.
Alongside distant planets and fascinating space nebulae, astronomers have also used Hubble to analyze black holes. Among all the known entities of the universe, black holes are the most fascinating. It's a section of outer space where gravity becomes so powerful that nothing can escape it — be it stars, space dust, or even light. Black holes are destructive by nature, and that's what makes this latest Hubble discovery so fascinating.
Related: Hubble Finds A Peaceful Galaxy With A Dark, Explosive History
On January 19, NASA published a report on galaxy Henize 2-10. Henize 2-10 is a dwarf galaxy, has a black hole at its center, and is located 30 million light-years from Earth. It's also a galaxy that absolutely stumped everyone when it was first discovered 10 years ago. For a decade now, astronomers have been looking at Henize 2-10 and trying to understand if dwarf galaxies have black holes that are similarly sized to ones in larger galaxies. While using Hubble to more closely examine Henize 2-10, astronomer Amy Reines discovered something incredible. Henize 2-10's black hole isn't destroying nearby stars at all. In fact, it's 'burping' them out and creating new ones.
The idea of a black hole birthing stars instead of engulfing them may sound ludicrous, but there's reliable science that explains how this is happening. 230 light-years away from Henize 2-10's black hole is a star-forming
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