Henize 2-10 lacks a bulge — a dense collection of stars that exists at the center of most spiral galaxies. Usually, the mass of a galaxy's bulge directly correlates with the mass of its central black hole. Some researchers thought a galaxy had to already have a bulge before a black hole could form.More info at Space.com.
"This definitely suggests the black hole comes first, because Henize 2-10 is a very low-mass dwarf galaxy without a detectable bulge, yet it does already have a supermassive black hole sitting there," said study leader Amy Reines, a graduate student at the University of Virginia. "So the implication is you don't have to have a bulge to form a black hole."
Yet more research will be needed to determine if this is the usual case, or if Henize 2-10 is just an oddball.
Black hole discovery suggests critical role to galaxy formation
Posted on Wednesday, January 12 2011 @ 7:25 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck