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IPFS News Link • Science, Medicine and Technology

Are Supermassive Black Holes Going to Eat the Universe?

• https://www.space.com

The largest black holes grow faster than their galaxies, according to new research.

Two studies from separate groups of researchers find that so-called supermassive black holes are bigger than astronomers would have calculated from their surroundings alone. Supermassive black holes are enormous gravity wells found in the center of large galaxies.

No stress, though: The black holes are generally no longer growing, and they aren't capable of eating their host galaxies for dinner. [Science Fact or Fiction? The Plausibility of 10 Sci-Fi Concepts]

"The black hole is tiny compared to the whole galaxy, so we are very safe!" said Guang Yang, a graduate student at The Pennsylvania State University who led one of the new studies.

Yang's study found that the larger the galaxy, the faster the black hole grew in comparison to the birth rate of the galaxy's stars. The other study found that the masses of supermassive black holes are about 10 times greater than would be expected if these central black holes grew at the same rate as the galaxies they inhabit.


www.universityofreason.com/a/29887/KWADzukm