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Monster Black Hole Sucking Up Space
By Mary Papenfuss
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Posted Jul 26, 09 7:26 AM CDT
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(Newser)
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A monstrous black hole near the center of a distant galaxy is sucking up stars, gas and dust, and spitting out baby stars, NASA scientists have discovered. The black hole is 100 million times the mass of the sun, reports the Telegraph. It lies at the center of a galaxy 50 million light years away known as NGC-1097, and has been photographed by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in California.
A black hole also lies at the center of the Milky Way, but has only a fraction of the power of the new discovery. The NASA photo reveals a fiery ring around the black hole which is packed with searing newborn stars. "The ring itself is a fascinating object because it is forming stars at a very high rate," says a NASA astronomer.