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It means that Silk and Ree's theory may be right and if it is also right that supermassive black holes helped trigger star formation, then it must mean that all giant black holes and their galaxies are connected from birth. It means the answer to the mystery of galaxy formation may lie in the creation of the supermassive black holes at their heart.
The real implication of the relation is that whatever controlled the formation of the galaxy and whatever controlled the formation of the supermassive black hole is basically the same thing. There is only one thing behind everything.
So a supermassive black hole, a force of terrible destruction, could also be fundamental in the creation of our galaxy. Nevertheless, its latent destructive power should not be underestimated.
Back in Hawaii, Andrea Ghez has made a new discovery. She's discovered a new source of light in the center of our galaxy. The black hole may be starting to feed again.
All of a sudden, we saw something that looks like a star, but maybe it isn't a star, but it's definitely a new object in our map and the interesting thing is that it located where we think the black hole is.
Ghez thinks this spot of light could be something amazing.
One idea that I'm particularly intrigued by at the moment is the idea that perhaps the black hole is, is feeding more right now.
Andrea thinks that the light she sees is coming from hot gas being sucked into the vortex of the black hole. So if our black hole has started feeding again, could this affect the Earth, even though we're 24,000 light years away?
We're in absolutely no danger of being eaten by the supermassive black hole. And in fact if we do think the black hole is going through a slightly large feeding at the moment, it's tiny, it's tiny compared to what other galaxy, galaxies are doing, so in fact still this is a very quiet black hole. In spite of the fact that there might be new emission from it, it's still extremely low.
Our black hole is merely having the equivalent of a small snack feeding on a wisp of gas that's strayed too close. The black hole stopped growing billions of years ago. Only a major catastrophe could make it fire up again, something violent enough to hurl stars from the safety of our galaxy's edge into its deadly heart. And we now know that one day this catastrophe could happen.
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