Dusty Supermassive Black Hole

This animation shows the surroundings around a super-massive black hole. Supermassive black holes are found in the centres of active galaxies and have a dust torus around their waist. In some cases astronomers can look along the axis of the dust torus from above or from below and have a clear view of the black hole. For black holes that lie with the dust torus edge-on as viewed from Earth our view of the black hole is totally blocked by the dust over a range of wavelengths from the near-infrared to soft X-rays.

A European team led by Paolo Padovani from Space Telescope-European Coordinating Facility and the European Southern Observatory in Munich, Germany, recently discovered a whole population of these obscured, powerful supermassive black holes.


The jets coming out of the region nearest the black hole are also seen. They emerge from an area close to the black hole where a disk of accreted material rotates around the black hole.


Credit: ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• dusty
• supermassive
• black
• hole

[BeyondNeptune]

an artist's rendition is proof of nothing.

[DrKillaser]

@Arioch44 mass of universe is larger then i should be according to the matter that we can observe... so there must be something that add mass, and that something can't be seen ( till now ) so.. how would you explain that?

[supergiuovane]

@Arioch44 Laboratory experiments are not the one and only tool of experimental physics. Everything, after all, means "observation". You don't have any "laboratory proof" for earth's interior structure, or for the fact that the sun is burning with nuclear fusion, for example. Black holes? How do you explain the motion of stars in the centre of our Galaxy? Or emission in AGNs?

[Arioch44]

@supergiuovane sure but...show me some lab experiments that prove the existence of dark matter or black holes....

[supergiuovane]

@Arioch44 neither protons, electrons, neutrons...

[Arioch44]

Black Holes and Dark Matter have a commonality though...neither have ever been observed.

[NAWRARESNAW]

@Kasu1917 Yep,dark matter.

[Kasu1917]

actually, the main force holding the galaxies together is not super massive blackholes, but Dark Matter.

[willyrobinson]

what if black holes dont exist and its just an electro-plasma force in the center holding galaxies together in motion...? what then? the universe is electro-dominated not gravitationally-dominated.

[ccaptorchen]

the different wave length of light is also being shot out. u can't see the hole itself but you can see the point of no return for the matters around it and the gamma rays being release. from the center. this the "clear view"....