Galactic Black Holes May Be More Massive Than Thought

Illustrated is a new understanding of the relationship between the mass of a galaxy’s central black hole and the mass of its central bulge of stars. A new model suggests revising how this relationship is defined, at least for black holes in the most massive galaxies. Credit: Tim Jones/Univ. of Texas at Austin after K. Cordes and S. Brown/STScI

From Science News:

Predictions and observations could resolve seeming mismatch between close and distant giants

Astronomers report that some of the biggest supermassive black holes in nearby galaxies are at least twice and possibly four times as heavy as previously estimated. The findings come from new simulations by two independent teams of researchers, as well as new observations of stars whipping around a handful of supermassive black holes at the centers of massive galaxies no more than a few hundred million light-years from Earth.

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