A jet of material is blasted out of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy M87.
Credit: NASA, STScI, Hubble
"There is a long-standing problem in that quasar black hole masses were very large — 10 billion solar masses," said Gerhardt. But because black hole masses nearby were much smaller, it was assumed the quasar result was wrong, he said. "If we increase the mass of M87 two or three times, the problem almost goes away."
If Gerhardt and Thomas are right, it will affect how astronomers understand the link between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies.
Down the plughole
Supermassive black holes were thought to form when smaller black holes and their host galaxies merge. As they merge, the supermassive black hole begins to rapidly suck in gas, in turn dumping energy into the galaxy. This excess energy quells star formation, preventing hot clouds of molecular gas from cooling into stars.
Bigger black holes means that this feedback may be more extreme than astronomers thought, said Australian astrophysicist Scott Croom, at the University of Sydney.
The research is a "good bit of work" and a "big step in improving black hole mass estimates," he said. "It means we will have to revise our models of how feedback occurs between black holes and galaxies… It could be that the data is out by a factor of two."
Follow Cosmos on Twitter!
twitter.com/cosmosmagazine
I think what this article is
I think what this article is saying is that we have not changed our estimate for the total mass of M87, but rather we now think that a higher proportion of that mass is in the central black hole, so a lower proportion than we previously thought is in the galaxy's stars, gas and dust etc. Did I read that right? If so, I guess the dark matter problem still stands, because we're still looking for missing mass? Bit confused, so any explanations gratefully received!