Astronomy › Section T · Galaxies and quasars › Topic T.7
Supermassive black holes
Only one engine can pour out the power of a hundred galaxies from a region the size of a solar system: gas falling into a black hole of millions to billions of solar masses. Such black holes sit at the centres of nearly all large galaxies.
In this topic
- What the engine must do
- Why not stars?
- Energy from falling
- Worked example: powering a quasar
- Weighing the central mass
- Worked example: a hidden mass
- Seeing the shadow
- Everywhere, but mostly asleep
- Jets
- One engine, many faces
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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