image: Projected density distributions of dark matter (background and top panel) and gas (bottom three panels) components when the massive star forms. The stellar cradle is extremely asymmetrical as a wide wedge-shaped structure (middle panel) due to the initial supersonic gas motions left over from the Big Bang. The circle in the right panel indicates the gravitationally unstable region with mass of 26,000 solar-masse. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the 29 September 2017, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by S. Hirano at University of Texas, Austin in Austin, TX, and colleagues was titled, "Supersonic gas streams enhance the formation of massive black holes in the early universe." view more
Credit: Shingo Hirano