Wayward Gluttons: Galactic Black Holes Can Migrate or Quickly Awaken from Quiescence
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 - 11:40
in Astronomy & Space
MIAMI--Observations from NASA space telescopes have revealed new quirks about the supermassive black holes at the heart of two galaxies. In the supersize elliptical galaxy M87 some 55 million light-years away, for one, the black hole is not in the galaxy's center of mass, apparently having been pushed askew by some violent process. And in the Andromeda Galaxy, a neighbor to our own Milky Way just 2.5 million light-years away, the black hole appears to have recently--and very suddenly--awoken from a slumber. Two groups presented the black-hole findings Tuesday at the semiannual meeting of the American Astronomical Society being held here this week. [More] Black hole - Milky Way - Supermassive black hole - Galaxy - Andromeda Galaxy