Stir the Pot

Hailey Nelson/ Arizona State University Artist’s illustration of a supermassive black hole at the center of a radio galaxy launching powerful jets all the way into the galaxy’s circumgalactic medium. Supermassive black holes are powerful engines. They can rip stars apart and feed upon them. They blast jets of ionized gas at near-light speeds. On the other hand, these gravitational beasts are rather small. Though they can be millions or billions of solar masses, they are localized to within the size of a stellar system. The galaxies they call home span more than 100,000 light-years and can be more than 100 billion solar masses. So how do these localized powerhouses have such a large impact on galactic evolution? This is the focus of a new study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.1 We know from observations that black holes and their galaxies are intimately connected. We are still figuring out just how they interact. Much of the research focuses on the central region of a galaxy.…