A relatively close baby Black Hole

This evening NASA's CHANDRA team (the X-RAY telescope) have discovered something 50million light years away from earth.... A 30 year old black hole!

Still in it's infancy, the remains of a supernova SN1979C, not only is it's discovery great... we've also seen this baby black hole's birth.

When a large star dies it expands forming a supernova, all the gases are burnt up and the star forms either a dense neutron star, that is small but contains the star's mass - therefore very dense!
In some cases the mass of he star is so great that the star collapses in on it's self forming a black hole. Black holes are known as dark matter and basically engulf space matter, not even light can escape! (Hence the name!)

This baby black hole is exciting for physicists as it means they have a relatively close infant black hole which they can study. This means they can learn more about black holes and the way they're formed.

Exciting stuff! Let's hope they don't find any more too close for us to start panicking!



Ref: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_10-299_CHANDRA.html