Researchers witness apparent birth of black hole

This composite image shows a supernova within the galaxy M100 that may contain the youngest known black hole in our cosmic neighborhood. In this image, Chandra’s X-rays are colored gold, while optical data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope are shown in red, green, and blue, and infrared data from Spitzer are red. The location of the supernova, known as SN 1979C, is labeled. (Photo: NASA)

A mysterious object that is eating interstellar gas and emitting X-rays in a telltale pattern is almost certainly a very young black hole, although the researchers said in an announcement on Monday at NASA headquarters that they couldnot rule out other possibilities, U.S. media reported.

"We've never known before the exact birthday of a black hole, and now we can watch as it grows into a child and teenager," said Kimberly Weaver, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Learning about black holes has been like solving a puzzle, and this will help us get closer to a full understanding."

An armature astronomer found the star 31 years ago which is 50 million light-years away from earth. In 1979, the star was in process of exploding into a supernova.

When very large stars explode - or go supernova - they may leave behind a fairly massive remnant that can then collapse in on itself. Eventually, it can collapse to the point of having no volume and infinite density - at which point it is a black hole.

The researchers believe that the black hole is now about five times the mass of our sun but is less than 25 miles across and was formed from the explosion of a star about 20 times as massive as our sun.

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