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One last post - An Astronomical Tidbit: There are two types of black holes. The first type is created in the aftermath of the death of hot stars that supernovae. These BHs have a mass comparable to the mass of the Sun ( M_O).

The other type are supermassive black holes (SMBHs) which typically are 1 million to 1 billion times as massive as the Sun (1M M_O to 1B M_O) and are found in the cores of most present-day galaxies. Most of the growth of these SMBH occurs in the early universe inside QSO and other active galaxy nuclei (AGNs) when galaxies are extraordinarily gas rich. These AGNs are very bright caused by gas falling onto the central black hole, causing it to grow.

The first picture is Centaurus A, an AGN only 10-15 million light years away. Cen A is an example of SMBH in a fast growth stage. Note: the gas jets of ions and electrons being ejected towards the poles at relativistic speeds. The upper-right inset is a radio-wave image, showing these jets extend many times beyond the visible image.

The second picture is the Andromeda galaxy (M31) plus a small satellite galaxy, M32. M32 has a 2 million M_O SMBH while M31 has a binary SMBH in its core. While black holes cannot be observed directly, the acceleration of gas onto the SMBH produces the double peak in the luminosity as seen in the inset.

astrochuck 6 Feb 23
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6 comments

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0

Wow!! How beautiful. What do you mean 'one last post? Have we been boring you? lol

1

The third is the cavity between Trumps ears

1

That is so amazing! And beautiful! Thanks so much for the information. Learn something new everyday!

1

This is fascinating. It's so hard for me to wrap my brain around these numbers / sizes.

0

Why no more posts?

0

very cool Chuck. YOu will be missed

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