Accreting black holes in galaxies
Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 05:00
in Astronomy & Space
(Phys.org) -- Seyfert galaxies are like normal galaxies, our own Milky Way included, except in one critical respect: their nuclei are fantastically bright. In some instances they are as luminous as 100 billion Suns, though even the weakest Seyfert nuclei are as luminous as a million Suns. Scientists believe that these huge energies are being generated by a massive black hole in the nucleus, not an ensemble of stars. Matter, as it falls in towards the vicinity of the black hole, heats up and glows intensely. Astronomers think our Milky Way also has a massive black hole at its center, but (for reasons that are not yet entirely understood) our galactic center is not particularly bright.