(click on image to enlarge)
From NASA/ ESA, January 19, 2022:
Black holes are often described as the monsters of the
universe—tearing apart stars, consuming anything that comes too close,
and holding light captive. Detailed evidence from the NASA/ESA Hubble
Space Telescope, however, shows a black hole in a new light: fostering,
rather than suppressing, star formation. Hubble imaging and spectroscopy
of the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10 clearly show a gas outflow
stretching from the black hole to a bright star birth region like an
umbilical cord, triggering the already dense cloud into forming clusters
of stars. Astronomers have previously debated that a dwarf galaxy could
have a black hole analogous to the supermassive black holes in larger
galaxies. Further study of dwarf galaxies, which have remained small
over cosmic time, may shed light on the question of how the first seeds
of supermassive black holes formed and evolved over the history of the
universe.
This dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10 sparkles with young stars in
this Hubble visible-light image. The bright region at the center,
surrounded by pink clouds and dark dust lanes, indicates the location of
the galaxy's massive black hole and active stellar nurseries.
Credit: NASA, ESA, Z. Schutte (XGI), A. Reines (XGI), A. Pagan (STScI)
