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Star and black-hole formation

What's hot and what's not

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Stars form from gas both dense enough to collapse but diffuse enough to cool into molecules. If cooling is prohibited, a supermassive black hole may form instead. The transition may explain key mysteries of galactic structure.

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Figure 1: Optical image of Andromeda, a typical spiral galaxy and the nearest to our own Milky Way.

© TONY AND DAPHNE HALLAS

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Blackman, E. What's hot and what's not. Nature Phys 6, 84–85 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1524

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