Galaxies and black holes (Free Astronomy Public Lectures)

Presented by Prof. Roger Davies on 4 September 2015.

Using exceptional data from Hubble Space Telescope astronomers have discovered supermassive black holes, with masses ranging from millions to billions times the mass of the Sun, at the very centre of massive galaxies. Intriguingly the mass of this central black hole scales with many of the properties of the host galaxy, for example the total mass of the galaxy is about five hundred times the mass of the black hole. However the direct gravitational influence of the black hole extends to only a minute fraction of the volume of the galaxy (about one billionth of the total volume). So, how are these connections established? I will explore this question and reveal an unexpected twist in the story of galaxy evolution.