Massive Hold
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Super massive black holes and their qualities?
Every galaxy has a super massive black hole in the middle of them, the main force of gravity holding the galaxy itself together.
But don't black holes suck things into them so fast that not even light can escape? Why is this not happening with super massive black holes and their galaxies?
I think every *large* galaxy is expected to have a SMBH, and yes, they play a significant role in the shape and evolution of the galaxy over time. There's also a chicken-egg question: did the galaxy form the SMBH, or did the SMBH form the galaxy?
Yes, anything getting too close to a black hole, whether it is super-massive or not, never comes out. 'Too close' is defined as the Schwarzschild radius. Anything going past that point will never come out, because the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light (it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea).
As far as why SMBH's play a role in spewing energy and particles out of some galaxies at near light-speed: All of that happens *outside* the Schwarzschild radius, in the accretion disk of the black hole. In this region, infalling matter is accelerated faster and faster, closing in on the speed of light. As it is accelerated, it bumps into other particles of matter with great energy, heating it intensely, and causing it to emit hard radiation across the spectrum. This energy build-up causes the relatavistic jets and other phenomena that are common in active galactic nuclei (AGNs).
The Hold Steady: "Massive Nights"
