Browsing Tag
supermassive
Astrophysicists Hunt for Second-Closest Supermassive Black Hole
Newswise — Cambridge, Mass. – Two astrophysicists at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian have suggested a way to observe what could be the second-closest supermassive black hole to Earth: a behemoth 3 million times…
Ask Astro: What are a supermassive black hole’s jets made of?
What exactly are M87* and other supermassive black holes’ jets made of?
William Montgomery
Cincinnati, Ohio
About a century ago, astronomers first noticed what appeared to be a ray of light shooting away from the center of M87, an…
A new census of supermassive black holes that are growing
Yale astrophysicists have helped assemble an unprecedented census of the most powerful, growing supermassive black holes in the universe.
Using data from NASA’s Swift satellite and a collection of ground-based telescopes — including…
Clearest Understanding Yet of the Life Cycle of Supermassive Black Holes
The doughnut-shaped ring surrounding many supermassive black holes tells researchers about how fast the space object is feeding and can change how the black hole is viewed from Earth. Credit: ESA/NASA, the AVO project and Paolo…
Do Supermassive Black Holes Prematurely end Star Formation in Some Galaxies?
Some galaxies, like the Milky Way, have maintained regular star formation for billions of years. Others, like large elliptical galaxies, are “red and dead.” Star formation in those galaxies shut off long ago. Astronomers have long…
The Building Blocks for Supermassive Black Holes are Found in Dwarf Galaxies
We all know that a humongous black hole exists at the center of our galaxy. It’s called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* for short) and it has the mass of 4 million suns. We’ve got to see a radio image of it a few weeks back, showing its…
Astronomers Announce Discovery of Supermassive Binary Black Holes
Two supermassive black holes orbit one another in a binary system. They are 10 times closer to each other than the black holes in the only other known supermassive binary black hole system. Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)A team of…
Astronomers Detect Supermassive Black Hole Precursor – Could Be Evolutionary “Missing
This is an artist’s illustration of a supermassive black hole that is inside the dust-shrouded core of a vigorously star-forming “starburst” galaxy. It will eventually become an extremely bright quasar once the dust is gone. The research…