Tuesday, August 20, 2013

How Do Black Holes Get Super Massive?

How Do Black Holes Get Super Massive? :

A binary black hole pair with an accretion disk inclined 45 degrees.  Source: Nixon et al.
A binary black hole pair with an accretion disk inclined 45 degrees. One can see the concentric rings before they are accreted onto the black holes. Source: Nixon et al.
Since their discovery, supermassive black holes – the giants lurking in the center of every galaxy – have been mysterious in origin. Astronomers remain baffled as to how these supermassive black holes became so massive.
New research explains how a supermassive black hole might begin as a normal black hole, tens to hundreds of solar masses, and slowly accrete more matter, becoming more massive over time. The trick is in looking at a binary black hole system.  When two galaxies collide the two supermassive black holes sink to the center of the merged galaxy and form a binary pair.  The accretion disk surrounding the two black holes becomes misaligned with respect to the orbit of the binary pair. It tears and falls onto the black hole pair, allowing it to become more massive.
(...)
Read the rest of How Do Black Holes Get Super Massive? (457 words)

© Shannon Hall for Universe Today, 2013. |Permalink |No comment |
Post tags: ,

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

No comments:

Post a Comment