Black hole star mystery solved...

Black hole star mystery 'solved'

The researchers modelled how molecular clouds are sucked into black holes

Astronomers have shed light on how stars can form around a massive black hole, defying conventional wisdom.

Scientists have long puzzled over how stars develop in so extreme conditions.

Molecular clouds - the normal birth places of stars - would be ripped apart by the immense gravity, a team explains in Science magazine.

But the researchers say that stars can form from elliptical discs - the relics of giant gas clouds torn apart by encounters with black holes.

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