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Scientists Solve Mystery of Star Formation Near Black Holes |
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Saturday, 23 August 2008 07:23 |
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eonlabs writes "A new paper has been published on the formation of stars in close proximity to a supermassive black hole. Their formation has not been well understood until now, but with the help of a year of supercomputer time, scientists have been able to model the interstellar processes needed to produce them. The results not only match up well with earlier observations, but provide clues as to how their formation is remotely possible. It also helps clear up previous research in this area. "The simulations...followed the evolution of two separate giant gas clouds up to 100,000 times the mass of the Sun, as they fell towards the supermassive black hole. ...The disrupted clouds form into spiral patterns as they orbit the black hole... In these conditions, only high mass stars are able to form and these stars inherit the eccentric orbits from the elliptical disc."" The paper itself was published in Science, but you"ll need a subscription to read more than the abstract. 
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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