Supermassive black holes — which are millions to billions the size of stellar-mass black holes — have been spotted spewing cosmic plumes before, but until now, astronomers thought that these jets hindered, rather than helped, star formation in dwarf galaxies. .
"At only 30 million light-years away, Henize 2-10 is close enough that Hubble was able to capture both images and spectroscopic evidence of a black hole outflow very clearly, lead author Zachary Schutte, a graduate student at Montana State University, said in the statement.But with the gentle, less-massive outflow from the black hole in Henize 2-10, gas conditions were perfect for star formation.
As this black hole has remained relatively small over time, the researchers believe that studying it in more detail could help them to understand the smaller origins of larger supermassive black holes in the universe, and what processes made them balloon to such enormous scales."Dwarf galaxies may retain some memory of the black hole seeding scenario that has otherwise been lost to time and space.".