Black Hole Disks Form Stars

Under typical conditions, a supermassive black hole that feeds through an accretion disk may only reach roughly 50 billion solar masses. If it grows further, gas in the unstable disk can form stars instead of falling into the black hole. At around that mass, the disk may stop forming, cutting off that route of growth, though the black hole could still grow by swallowing stars or merging with another black hole.

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