Black Holes and Galaxies: A Love-Hate Relationship
This talk details how the supermassive black holes lurking at the hearts of most galaxies affect the evolution of those galaxies, and how the galaxies provide raw material for the black holes' growth.
Black holes do not spend their lives alone in empty space. It is now known that at the center of almost every galaxy there is an enormous black hole, with a mass billions of times the mass of the sun.
This black hole pulls in and sweeps away gas from the center of the galaxy. This coupling of the black hole and the galaxy causes the pair to evolve hand in hand. In the right circumstances it liberates huge amounts of
energy, giving rise to the brightest objects in the universe. In this lecture, SLAC astrophysicist Silvia Bonoli describes the torrid relationship of black holes and galaxies as each shapes the life of the other.
| Black Holes and Galaxies: A Love-Hate Relationship |
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