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NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has uncovered evidence of the youngest black hole ever found, the agency said in a statement, adding that it provides a unique opportunity to watch this type of astronomical object “develop from infancy.”

The 30-year-old black hole is a remnant of supernova SN 1979C within the galaxy M100 about 50 million light years from Earth. Astronomers used data from Chandra in addition to NASA’s Swift satellite, the ESA’s XMN-Newton, and the German ROSAT observatory to confirm what appears to be a bright source of X-rays that has remained steady over a 12 year period.

“If our interpretation is correct, this is the nearest example where the birth of a black hole has been observed,” said Daniel Patnaude of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. who led the study. The steady x-ray source means that the object is likely a black hole with material still falling into it from the supernova.

“This may be the first time the common way of making a black hole has been observed,” said co-author Abraham Loeb, also of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the agency said. “However, it is very difficult to detect this type of black hole birth because decades of X-ray observations are needed to make the case.”

The thinking is that SN 1979C formed when a star about 20 times more massive than the sun collapsed. If so, it’s possible that black holes are formed more often by star collapses without gamma-ray bursts, which are our usual means of detecting a black hole.

Watch this NASA TV video for a short demonstration of where the supernova is, and how it could have formed from a collapsing star:

Last year, an image from Chandra’s X-ray Observatory showed high-energy X-rays emanating from the nebula around a known pulsar, which when colored blue, revealed a structure resembling a hand reaching for some cosmic red light.

NASA first launched the Chandra X-ray Observatory back in 1999.