Astronomers Spot Baby Stars Forming Near Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole

Scientists have made a surprising discovery near the center of the Milky Way, as 11 baby stars were spotted right on the edge of our galaxy’s supermassive black hole.

This baby star nursery, as it’s called, is located a mere three light-years away from the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, which is known by the name Sagittarius A*. According to NASA, Sagittarius A* is about 4 million times more massive than our sun, and since it is only 26,000 light-years away from Earth, astronomers can easily see the flow of matter as it takes place.

Due to our planet’s proximity to Sagittarius A*, the researchers behind the new study were able to get a good look at the extremely young stars forming very close to the black hole. As noted by the International Business Times, this came as a surprise, as supermassive black holes are expected to tear apart the gas and dust used to form stars, either by means of radiation or through gravitational forces.

Thanks to the discovery of the baby star nursery near the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, the scientists believe that the cloud of star-forming materials has just the right amount of gravity to resist the black hole’s pull. Based on data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observatory, the 11 baby stars, which are also known as protostars, are estimated to be only about 6,000 years old each.

“Despite all odds, we see the best evidence yet that low-mass stars are forming startlingly close to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way,” said Northwestern University astronomer and study lead author Farhad Yusef-Zadeh.

“This is a genuinely surprising result and one that demonstrates just how robust star formation can be, even in the most unlikely of places.”

ALMA researchers have observed young stars forming near our galaxy's super-massive black hole. @ALMANRAO Perhaps for every hit there's a near miss by the black hole that rips star and binary systems apart and presents material for new star formation. https://t.co/Sfa2EWXvcr

— Tim Reyes (@telluric) November 28, 2017

Yusef-Zadeh and his colleagues knew that there were protostars by the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole when they saw “double lobes” of material surrounding each of them. According to BGR India, this is a classic sign that suggests a star is in the earliest stages of its formation. The ALMA observatory’s technology made it easy for the scientists to precisely detect these lobes, as carbon dioxide and other molecules emit a bright glow when exposed to millimeter-wavelength light.

Now that it can be confirmed that the Milky Way has some stars forming around its supermassive black hole, the scientists hope to find out if the 11 protostars have a chance of becoming similar to the sun by being the centers of their solar systems. The team is also looking into the possibility that such a phenomenon also takes place in the vicinity of other supermassive black holes, and not just near Sagittarius A*.