Starts With A Bang Podcast

When you think of an active galaxy, what picture comes to mind? Do you think about a monstrous supermassive black hole feasting on tremendous stores of gas and other forms of matter? Do you picture an enormous disk of accreted matter, being accelerated, heated, and eventually shot out along two jets, each perpendicular to the disk itself? This common picture of active galaxies describes many of the most prominent ones, but isn't universal to them all. Some active galaxies aren't giant ellipticals, but just average-looking spiral galaxies. Some galaxies aren't in the process of a major merger, but seem to be powered by their own internal gas. And some of these black holes aren't ridiculously massive, with billions of solar masses inherent to them, but are rather much more modest. Some of these active galaxies actually show practically no signs of activity in visible light, but must be viewed in other wavelengths, such as with radio telescopes, to reveal their activity. Above, you can see galaxy