Comet Enthusiast

Black holes -Stephen Hawking's enigmatic "bad boys of the Universe"- have been discovered to have the ability to strip massive galaxies of the cool gases required to form new stars, leaving ageing red giants to fade out of existence with no stars to replace them.

The study, led by Asa Bluck of the University of Nottingham's School of Physics and Astronomy and a Fellow of the Royal Society, used images of unprecedented depth and resolution from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory to detect black holes in distant galaxies. Researchers looked for galaxies emitting high levels of radiation and x-rays — a classic signature of black holes devouring gas and dust through accretion, or attracting matter gravitationally., used images of unprecedented depth and resolution from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory to detect black holes in distant galaxies. Researchers looked for galaxies emitting high levels of radiation and x-rays — a classic signature of black holes devouring gas and dust through accretion, or attracting matter gravitationally.