SIEGEL: So how does this change whatever theoretical ideas there are about the creations of galaxies and black holes and which one comes first?
GEBHARDT: Right. So the general consensus is exactly as you said. You start with a galaxy. There's a lot of stuff in a galaxy. There's lots of gas and dust. That stuff will interact with itself and it will fall into the middle. If there is a black hole, the gas and dust will go into the black hole and feed the black hole and grow its mass. And this leads to a really nice theoretical prediction that there's a correlation between the amount of mass in the black hole and the amount of mass in the galaxy.
SIEGEL: Okay. Now, your huge black hole that you've discovered suggests that it would've had to be formed in a different way.
GEBHARDT: Exactly, because this violates that idea. You just - the amount of mass we're talking about for the size of the galaxy, first of all, the amount of gas and dust the galaxy would have to start out with is pretty enormous. And secondly, you'd have to get that material, all that material, down into the black hole. And we just don't understand right now the physical process that could allow that to happen 'cause it just doesn't want to make it in.
- Read rest of the interview with astrophysicist Karl Gebhardt of the University of Texas, Austin Here
GEBHARDT: Right. So the general consensus is exactly as you said. You start with a galaxy. There's a lot of stuff in a galaxy. There's lots of gas and dust. That stuff will interact with itself and it will fall into the middle. If there is a black hole, the gas and dust will go into the black hole and feed the black hole and grow its mass. And this leads to a really nice theoretical prediction that there's a correlation between the amount of mass in the black hole and the amount of mass in the galaxy.
SIEGEL: Okay. Now, your huge black hole that you've discovered suggests that it would've had to be formed in a different way.
GEBHARDT: Exactly, because this violates that idea. You just - the amount of mass we're talking about for the size of the galaxy, first of all, the amount of gas and dust the galaxy would have to start out with is pretty enormous. And secondly, you'd have to get that material, all that material, down into the black hole. And we just don't understand right now the physical process that could allow that to happen 'cause it just doesn't want to make it in.
- Read rest of the interview with astrophysicist Karl Gebhardt of the University of Texas, Austin Here
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