Astro Cast Episode 213: Supermassive Black Holes

Astronomycast Episode 213: Supermassive Black Holes.
           Most Galaxies will contain one or more of these black holes.  Usually, there are quite a few of these supermassive black holes located at the center of each galaxy.  Since no light is permitted to escape from a black hole, they are very hard for scientists to detect and must be detected indirectly.  The active black holes feed on the gas and dust in the rings that surround them. As these dusts particles fall into the black holes at very fast speeds, it causes friction that enables the particles to light up in X-Ray and infrared, allowing the astronomers to find these black holes.  These objects are the Active Galactic Nuclei or AGN. The supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxies is called the quasar, which is a type of these AGNs.  Due to new computer technology, research on black hole development has shown that growing black holes release a blast of energy that regulate galaxy evolution and black hole growth itself.  When the Universe began, it is believed that the black holes were much smaller but over time these have been pulled together and combined forming the supermassive black holes with masses a billion times that of our sun's.