what lies in the centre of a galaxy?

Answer 1

I was watching the Science Channel two days ago and the subject was supermassive black holes.

As astronomers kept finding evidence for supermassive black holes in nearly every galaxy, questions arose.

There are many now who are convinced that the black holes are actually responsible for the galaxies! Here is the reasoning:

The original various gas clouds (or, to be fair, slightly more dense than most of space) would slowly start to contract by action of gravity. Over time, the center of the cloud would become more and more dense and gravity would eventually pull enough material into the center to form a black hole.

The black hole would start feeding, pulling more and more matter into the black hole and the black hole would become more massive. At the same time, as more matter fell into the ever-growing gavity well, the matter would be come heated due to friction with other matter. This would become very hot and emit x-rays and such. As this action increased, the radiation produced from the infalling matter would actually push back nearby gas in the cloud (perhaps not totally unlike a collapsing star which then grows incredably hot and blows away its' outer layers). This gas would be moving outward and start colliding with infalling gas, thus resulting in a denser part of the gas cloud. In this more dense gas, local anomolies would cause gravitational collapse into stars, thus, over time, the galaxy would form.

The current thought is that black holes are responsible for the galaxy and not the other way around.


Best regards,
Jim

Answer 2

It appears that there is a huge concentration of mass known as a black hole there.

Also keep in mind that the galaxy that you see in pictures is just the "tip of the iceberg". Approximately 90% of the mass of of a galaxy does not glow and is not visible. It is made up of what is currently called "dark matter" and we only know of it's existence due to the gravitational effects that it causes.

Answer 3

It's supposedly a huge black hole that keeps the galaxy together with its large amount of gravitational forces.

Answer 4

In the center of many spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, astronomers have found super-massive black holes millions of times more massive than our sun.

Answer 5

It is called the galactic nucleus, and is believed to be a supermassive black hole. It is also thought that most galaxies, with the exception of small ones, have black holes at the center of them.

Answer 6

The center of our galaxy at about 28,000 light years distance lies in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Here it rises with the small town of Anza at its base providing a slight glow of man made light pollution from behind Thomas Mountain, CA. Light pollution is a bane for film astrophotographers. Many travel great distances in an effort to escape it's effects on their often difficult craft.

Answer 7

Something that sounds like it could get Imus into trouble again.

Answer 8

Always a concentration of stars and debris; usually a massive black hole.

Answer 9

a chewy tootsie roll center.

Answer 10

We like it or note there is a black hole.