Astrophysicists have confirmed the accuracy of an analytical model that can unlock key information about supermassive black holes and the stars they engulf.
Astrophysicists have confirmed the accuracy of an analytical model that can unlock key information about supermassive black holes and the stars they engulf. At the center of most large galaxies lives a supermassive black hole (SMBH). The Milky Way has Sagittarius A*, a mostly dormant SMBH whose mass is around 4.3 million times that of the sun. But if you look deeper into the universe, there are vastly larger SMBHs with masses that can reach up to tens of billions of times the mass of our sun.
Black holes grow in mass by gravitationally consuming objects in their near vicinity, including stars. It's a catastrophic and destructive end for stars unlucky enough to be swallowed by SMBHs, but fortunate for scientists who now have an opportunity to probe otherwise-dormant centers of galaxies.As the name implies, black holes do not emit any light of their own, making them very difficult for researchers to observ
Astrophysics Supermassive Black Holes Stars Galaxies