Supermassive
A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions, of times the mass of the Sun (M☉). Black holes are a class of astronomical objects that have undergone gravitational collapse, leaving behind spheroidal regions of space that nothing, not even light, can escape. Observational evidence indicates that almost every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center. For example, the Milky Way galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center, corresponding to the radio source Sagittarius A*. Accretion of interstellar gas onto supermassive black holes is the process responsible for powering active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and quasars.
Two supermassive black holes have been directly imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope; these are Sagittarius A, at the center of the Milky Way, and the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a giant elliptical galaxy.
Major Major
- 2015-11-04T00:00:00.000000Z
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