"The Dynamic Sun," a new exhibit conceived, designed and built by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), has just opened at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, D.C.
Every massive galaxy has a black hole at its center, and the heftier the galaxy, the bigger its black hole. But why are the two related? After all, the black hole is millions of times smaller and less massive than its home galaxy.
New stars regularly appear in the night sky as the gas and dust in giant interstellar clouds gradually coalesce under the influence of gravity. The process of making stars, however, is inefficient, and (at least in present-day galaxies) there are copious amounts of material that don't make it into stars.