Starship Asterisk*

Are all massive black holes located at galactic centers?

Hard to imagine how one wouldn't be, unless it had absorbed an entire galaxy of stars, and my understanding is that the universe is not old enough for that to have happened anywhere.

Jim Leff wrote:Are all massive black holes located at galactic centers?

Hard to imagine how one wouldn't be, unless it had absorbed an entire galaxy of stars, and my understanding is that the universe is not old enough for that to have happened anywhere.

Simple answer: yes. Somewhat deeper answer: all supermassive black holes probably formed in the center of galaxies, but a small percentage may no longer be there. We have at least one example of a supermassive black hole being ejected from its parent galaxy. So it's likely that there are more.

Thanks. Great link....I wonder if the LIGO guys are going to study that ejection case.

Hey, FWIW, I just did a quick google search of the issue, and found this breaking news: Twin black holes from gravitational wave discovery may have been born from a single star