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Black Holes Caught in the Act of Cosmic Creation

Astronomers have glimpsed the telltale signs of newly formed stars inside the powerful winds of a supermassive black hole.
Source: ESO / M. Kornmesser

In the universe, the places with the most extreme, destructive conditions can sometimes spawn something new.

A group of European astronomers have spotted new stars flaring to life inside the cosmic wind blasts expelled by a supermassive black hole. The black hole sits at the center of two merging galaxies 600 million light-years away, according to. The astronomers say this is the first clear evidence of star formation inside this kind of environment, previously suspected to be good for breeding stars.

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