Supermassive black hole

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A supermassive black hole is a black hole with a mass of the order of between 105 and 1010 solar masses. Most, if not all, galaxies, including the Milky Way, are believed to contain supermassive black holes at their centers.

Supermassive black holes have properties which distinguish them from their relatively low-mass cousins:

For more information about Supermassive black hole, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.


News tagged with supermassive black hole

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Record-Breaking Radio Astronomy Project to Measure Sky with Extreme Precision

Record-Breaking Radio Astronomy Project to Measure Sky with Extreme Precision

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 16, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers will tie together the largest collection of the world's radio telescopes ever assembled to work as a single observing tool in a project aimed at improving the precision of the ...


NASA's Great Observatories Celebrate International Year of Astronomy

NASA's Great Observatories Celebrate International Year of Astronomy

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- A never-before-seen view of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way galaxy is being unveiled by NASA on Nov. 10. This event will commemorate the 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope ...


Sky merger yields sparkling dividends

Sky merger yields sparkling dividends

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 13, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Not surprisingly, interacting galaxies have a dramatic effect on each other. Studies have revealed that as galaxies approach one another massive amounts of gas are pulled from each galaxy ...


Black Holes Go 'Mano a Mano'

Black Holes Go 'Mano a Mano'

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 06, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (15) | comments 11

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two black holes in galaxy NGC 6240 are only 3,000 light years apart -- and getting closer.


Cosmic entropy could be 100 times greater than previously thought

Physics / General Physics

created Oct 06, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (20) | comments 11

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new analysis of supermassive black holes has discovered the entropy of the universe is much greater than previously thought, which means it may also be very slightly closer to ultimate heat death.


Sophisticated telescope camera debuts with peek at nest of black holes

Sophisticated telescope camera debuts with peek at nest of black holes

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 15, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 0

Less than two months after they inaugurated the world's largest telescope, University of Florida astronomers have used one of the world's most advanced telescopic instruments to gather images of the heavens.


NGC 4945: The Milky Way's not-so-distant Cousin

NGC 4945: The Milky Way's not-so-distant Cousin

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 02, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- ESO has released a striking new image of a nearby galaxy that many astronomers think closely resembles our own Milky Way. Though the galaxy is seen edge-on, observations of NGC 4945 suggest ...


Giant Galaxy Hosts the Most Distant Supermassive Black Hole

Giant Galaxy Hosts the Most Distant Supermassive Black Hole

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 02, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (15) | comments 26

(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Hawaii (UH) astronomer Dr. Tomotsugu Goto and colleagues have discovered a giant galaxy surrounding the most distant supermassive black hole ever found. The galaxy, so distant ...


Living fossils hold record of 'supermassive' kick

Living fossils hold record of 'supermassive' kick

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 09, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (15) | comments 9

The tight cluster of stars surrounding a supermassive black hole after it has been violently kicked out of a galaxy represents a new kind of astronomical object and a fossil record of the kick.


VLBA locates superenergetic bursts near giant black hole

VLBA locates superenergetic bursts near giant black hole

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 02, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using a worldwide combination of diverse telescopes, astronomers have discovered that a giant galaxy's bursts of very high energy gamma rays are coming from a region very close to the supermassive ...


Mapping the Cold Universe

Astronomer's new guide to the galaxy: Largest map of cold dust revealed

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 01, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 1

This new guide for astronomers, known as the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL) shows the Milky Way in submillimetre-wavelength light (between infrared light and radio waves). Images ...


Stellar family in crowded, violent neighborhood proves to be surprisingly normal

Stellar family in crowded, violent neighborhood proves to be surprisingly normal

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 04, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (6) | comments 1

The massive Arches Cluster is a rather peculiar star cluster. It is located 25 000 light-years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), and contains about a thousand young, massive stars, ...


Ghost remains after black hole eruption

Ghost remains after black hole eruption

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 28, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (17) | comments 15

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has found a cosmic "ghost" lurking around a distant supermassive black hole. This is the first detection of such a high-energy apparition, and scientists think it is evidence ...


XMM-Newton takes astronomers to a black hole's edge

XMM-Newton takes astronomers to a black hole's edge

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 27, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 9

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using new data from ESA's XMM-Newton spaceborne observatory, astronomers have probed closer than ever to a supermassive black hole lying deep at the core of a distant active galaxy.


An Intriguing, Glowing Galaxy

An Intriguing, Glowing Galaxy

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 14, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (10) | comments 1

A supermassive black hole may be responsible for the glowing appearance of galaxy 3C 305, located about 600 million light years away in the constellation Draco. Composite data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory ...