The Role of Black Holes in the centers of Galaxies - Essay Example

In the Milky Way, the supermassive black hole is known as Sagitarrius A*, which is read as “A-star” (Naeye & Gutro, 2008). Sagitarrius A* is known to be “27,000 light years from the Earth [and] is four million times bigger than the Sun” (Ghosh, 2012). However, NASA reports Sagitarrius A* to be 26,000 light years away from the Earth, and not 27,000 (“A Mystery,” 2002). In fact, the existence of black holes has long been theorized by British astronomer Sir Martin Rees in 1974 and, according to him, “Supermassive black holes [or] ones with a million or even a billion solar masses might exist within the centers of some galaxies” (“A Mystery,” 2002).

According to Durham University astrophysicist Ian Small, “The black holes [that we studied] are seen precisely at the point where they can have the most influence on the properties of the galaxies they reside in” (qtd. In Lovgren, 2005). This means that if the supermassive black holes are located at other points in the galaxy except the center, then it cannot exert equal influence on all parts of the galaxy. In short, for it to exert an almost equal gravitational force on every part of the galaxy, then it has to be at its center.

The same principle works if the supermassive black hole is to release energy towards every part of the galaxy it is in, but this release of energy is merely hypothetical. According to Professor Richard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, “The center of the galaxy was a “unique laboratory for the study of the strong gravity, stellar dynamics and star formation with a level of detail ‘never possible beyond our galaxy’” (qtd. in “Black hole,” 2008). This means that there must be one good reason for the supermassive black hole to eventually reside in the galactic center other than position.

Genzel’s hypothesis is therefore the possibility that the physics of the center of the galaxy is unusually different from the rest of its parts. Perhaps then there is a much stronger gravitational attraction as well as different principles of stellar dynamics and star formation towards the galactic center. Furthermore, according to Cain, the center of the galaxy, where the supermassive black holes reside, serves as the place where “every galaxy serves to focus and concentrate material as the galaxy was first forming” and it is also possible that this is the same exact point “where the black hole formed first, and collected the rest of the galaxy around it” (Cain, 2008).

The aforementioned statement means that the possible origin of the galaxy may in fact be the exact point where the supermassive black hole is located and perhaps the galaxy still continues to grow from that central point. The implication of this theory is that, if it is true, then much constructive material is located in the black hole and that the galaxy is in fact never growing old and its parts constantly being replaced by these materials from the black hole. Another observation of Lovgren (2005) is that, according to scientists, “pairs of galaxies – and their black holes often merge together [thus producing] tidal forces [that] drive a lot of gas toward the center of the