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Mysterious Stars Surround Andromeda's Black Hole

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the hot-young-stars dept.

UltimaGuy writes to tell us that Yahoo is running a story about a recent discovery that shows the source of strange blue light coming from the center of the Andromeda galaxy. The light is actually a cluster of stars circling the galaxy's central black hole with immense orbital velocity. From the article: "Such frenetic activity was thought to prevent star formation. Stars form when a knot of gas and dust collapses under its own gravity."

2 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. power center of advanced civilization by peter303 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If it appears to be physically difficult to explain these stars, perhaps it is an artificial constuction. I'd expect an advanced extra-terrestial civilization to exploit the immense power of the galactic core black hole. Who knows what they are doing with it? Sustanence? Wormhole transport? Communication? Entertainment? Maybe one hundred infant stars whizzing around the center has something to do with this.

  2. Secondary eddies by revscat · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Like most of the morons around here, I am not a physicist, but I'm going to toss and idea out there anyhoo.

    I've noticed that sometimes when dealing with spiral phenomena (hurricanes, tornadoes, whirlpools, etc.) there are secondary, much smaller spirals that are thrown off from the main body. Could this be in effect here? Could the black hole be throwing off gravitational "eddies" that cause stars to be formed?