Researchers witness birth of black hole

Post date: Nov 16, 2010 11:31:13 PM

For the first time, scientists believe that they have been able to observe the birth of a 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)

5 times the mass of Sun

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.