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 Red means Te l e s c o p e w a s the gas is used to look at moving away the region in from us and the green box blue means to map the the gas is motion of the moving towards us! gas. This motion is due to the active SMBH! Away Real Image from HST of NGC1386 To w a r d 15 .