A black hole has cleared out its neighborhood

We can't see them directly, but we know they're there. Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) likely dwell at the center of every large galaxy. Their overwhelming gravity draws material toward them, where it collects in an accretion ...

How do supermassive black holes get so big?

(PhysOrg.com) -- At the center of most galaxies lie supermassive black holes that can grow to become more than a billion times larger than our Sun. However, astrophysicists don’t fully understand the formation and evolution ...

What are active galactic nuclei?

In the 1970s, astronomers became aware of a compact radio source at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy – which they named Sagittarius A. After many decades of observation and mounting evidence, it was theorized that the ...

Giant, low-surface-brightness galaxies

Forty years ago, astronomers using sensitive new imaging techniques discovered a class of large, faint galaxies they named low-surface-brightness galaxies. Giant low-surface-brightness galaxies (gLSBGs) are a subset whose ...

Black holes like to eat, but have a variety of table manners

All supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies appear to have periods when they swallow matter from their close surroundings. But that is about as far as the similarities go. That's the conclusion reached by British ...

Twin jets pinpoint the heart of an active galaxy

An international team of astronomers has measured the magnetic field in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole. A bright and compact feature of only 2 light days in size was directly observed by a world-wide ensemble of ...

How often do giant black holes become hyperactive?

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory tells scientists how often the biggest black holes have been active over the last few billion years. This discovery clarifies how supermassive black holes ...

Starving black hole returns brilliant galaxy to the shadows

The mystery of a rare change in the behaviour of a supermassive black hole at the centre of a distant galaxy has been solved by an international team of astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope along with the NASA/ESA ...

Galaxy changes classification as jet changes direction

A team of international astronomers have discovered a galaxy that has changed classification due to unique activity within its core. The galaxy, named PBC J2333.9-2343, was previously classified as a radio galaxy, but the ...

page 5 from 18