Gatsby, a black cat, has a white, spotted pattern resembling a galaxy of stars on his coat. He took the internet by storm after a video of him shared to Instagram on July 1 went viral.

A dwarf galaxy that appears to harbor a supermassive black hole far bigger than expected may have had most of its stars stolen from it by the Milky Way, scientists have proposed.

The galaxy, called GS-9209, formed most of its stars during a hyperactive burst of activity between 600 million and 800 million years after the Big Bang.Then, more than 12.5 billion years ago, it ...

“The classic location where you expect massive black holes to be in a galaxy is in the center, like our Sag A* at the center of the Milky Way,” explained lead researcher Yuhan Yao of UC Berkeley.

It's as if the black hole basically hurled it out of the galaxy. Sponsor Message Han and his colleagues recently studied 21 of these hypervelocity stars at the fringes of the Milky Way.

The researchers estimate the newfound stars ignited just 2.7 million years ago and will eventually succumb to the black hole's gravity, merging into a single star within a million years.

Traditionally, the term galaxy referred to a collection of stars and gas; then, dark matter was added. “Now it seems that the need for stars may not be necessary in the definition,” she said.

They are produced when a binary star system - two stars gravitationally bound to each other - ventures too close to a supermassive black hole. "The intense gravitational forces tear the pair apart.

Binary star found near our galaxy's supermassive black hole. ScienceDaily . Retrieved June 11, 2025 from www.sciencedaily.com / releases / 2024 / 12 / 241217130904.htm ...