by Shannon Hall | Sep 8, 2013 | Daily Paper Summaries
Sgr A* – the supermassive black hole sitting in the center of the Milky Way – is often referred to as a ‘starved’ black hole, meaning that it swallows very little of the nearby cosmic gas and dust. The authors of this paper observed Sgr A* with the Chandra X-ray telescope for 3 mega seconds, throughout which only 1% of the gas available to Sgr A* actually accreted onto the black hole. It swallows cold gas, while rejecting hot gas – ejecting the matter back into space.
by Nick Hand | Dec 23, 2012 | Daily Paper Summaries
The authors investigate the fraction of massive galaxies at z ~ 2 that contains an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN), in hopes of understanding the importance of AGN in quenching star formation.
by Evan Schneider | Oct 3, 2012 | Daily Paper Summaries
We know most galaxies host supermassive black holes at their centers, but how do they get so big? In this study, the authors investigate one of the smallest known supermassive black holes (weighing in at only 100,000 solar masses), to shed some light on what a young, accreting black hole might look like.
