Black hole in action: Artist's rendition of a distant super-massive black hole warping space while busy eating up stellar material.
Courtesy NASA/JPL-CaltechScientists now have a better idea why stars can still form out of giant molecular clouds being ripped apart by the gravitational pull of a nearby massive black hole.

The observed existence of huge stars in eccentric orbits around the super-massive black hole believed to be located at the center of our Milky Way galaxy has puzzled scientists. How can stars form in such extreme environments? Gravitational forces would be tremendous near the black hole, tearing apart everything in the immediate region.

The computer simulations, done by researchers from St Andrews University in the UK, show how a molecular cloud – a normal stellar nursery – is torn apart by the black hole’s immense gravitation pull. Although the powerful gravity-well eats a huge portion of the gas cloud, the remaining gases are still able to accrete more material and coalesce into stars.

This is possible because as a molecular cloud enters the black hole’s gravitational field it begins to form into a spiraling elliptical disk. The disk’s matter nearest the black hole is sucked into the gravitational vortex, while energy is transferred to the remaining outer material. This transferred energy allows the remnants to retain the eccentric orbital path as they form into huge stars many times the mass of the Sun.

"These simulations show that young stars can form in the neighborhood of super-massive black holes as long as there is a reasonable supply of massive clouds of gas from further out in the galaxy," said co-author Ian Bonnell. The study’s results appear in the current issue of Science.

The stars live fairly short lives - perhaps only about 10 million years. But their existence could help explain some of the mysteries surrounding black holes in galaxies.

LINKS
Story on BBC website
Science magazine abstract
More on super-massive black holes

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