Poster Version
Suppression of Star Formation from Supermassive Black Holes
This diagram illustrates research from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer
showing that black holes -- once they reach a critical size -- can put the
brakes on new star formation in elliptical galaxies.
In this graph, galaxies and their supermassive black holes are indicated
by the drawings (the black circle at the center of each galaxy represents
the black hole). The relative masses of the galaxies and their black holes
are reflected in the sizes of the drawings. Blue indicates that the galaxy
has new stars, while red means the galaxy does not have any detectable new
stars.
The Galaxy Evolution Explorer observed the following trend: the biggest
galaxies and black holes (shown in upper right corner) are more likely to
have no observable star formation (red) than the smaller galaxies with
smaller black holes. This is evidence that black holes can create
environments unsuitable for stellar birth.
The white line in the diagram illustrates that, for any galaxy no matter
what the mass, its black hole must reach a critical size before it can
shut down star formation.
