HST$Image$

Galactic Astronomy at RIT

9 Credit:$Caltech$

Spitzer

Graduate Students in the AST program at RIT discuss their research on Galaxies.

Ve r y L a rg e Array Hubble Space 27 25M-Antennas Telescope (HST) 2.4M

Gemini 8M Credit:$NRAO$

10 Not Shown to Scale Galaxies are made of billions of stars and at the center there is a supermassive black hole (SMBH)!

The birth rate of the stars in galaxies is affected by the growth of the SMBH.

Jets

SMBH Galaxy

11 There are many types of galaxies…

Spirals Ellipticals

Irregulars Interacting Galaxies

12 The galaxies in which the SMBHs are consuming material are called “Active Galaxies.” The Nuclear regions within these galaxies are called “Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN)!”

Host Galaxy The SMBH resides in the ~ 6X1017 miles across center, surrounded by the Accretion disk with the material that FEEDS it!

Centaurus A

Accretion12 Miles (Gas) across Disk ~$6X10

Ar8st’s$Representa8on$

The torus is made up of dust & gas. Astronomers are still trying to figure out the size & shape of this region. SMBH ~$$110,000,000 Miles across 13 Mergers of galaxies sometimes result in supermassive black holes (SMBH) that aren’t where we expect them to be.

Displaced Black Holes

1 2 3

4 5 6 Image$Credit:$Ohio$State$University$ Panels 1-6 show a simulation of 2 galaxies Here’s a real image merging over time of the final merger. The SMBH should be in the Center… 7 Hubble Image

But wait! That’s a Dense Star Cluster.

The SMBH is here! CID 42 14 AGN can cause gas to be blown away from it!

The Gemini Te l e s c o p e w a s Red means used to look at the gas is the region in moving away the green box from us and to map the blue means motion of the the gas is moving gas. towards us! This motion is due to the active SMBH!

Away

Real Image from HST of NGC1386

To w a r d

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