Strange Red Galaxy --Harbors a Monster Black Hole 100 Million Times Mass of Sun [View all]

[Swede]

A monster black hole 100 million times the mass of the Sun is feeding off gas, dust and a ring of stars at the centre of Galaxy NGC-1097 50 million light-years away. The star-ringed black hole forms the eye of the galaxy which was photographed by the US space agency's Spitzer Space Telescope in California.

The odd spiral galaxy extends long arms of red stars into space. But Nasa said the black hole at the centre of the galaxy in which Earth is situated is tame by comparison to NGC-1097, with the mass of just a few million suns.

"The fate of this black hole and others like it is an active area of research," said George Helou, deputy director of Nasa's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "Some theories hold that the black hole might quiet down and eventually enter a more dormant state like our Milky Way black hole."

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/01/weekend-feature-strange-red-galaxy-harbors-a-monster-black-hole-100-million-times-mass-of-sun.html