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Article: Getting to the bottom of supermassive black holes.
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- October 25, 1986
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1986 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Getting to the bottom of supermassive black holes
A supermassive black hole is an object (though philosophers may argue whether such a thing can truly be called an object) in which an amount of matter equivalent to millions or billions of such drops out of the universe, so to speak. Characterized by Alexei V. Filippenko of the University of California at Berkeley as the "monsters' residing in the centers of quasars, Seyfert galaxies and similar structures collectively known as active galactic nuclei, supermassive black holes are generally held responsible for the high-powered activities characteristic of those structures. Controversy surrounds their existence, ...