Thursday, January 7, 2016

gravity - How will the super massive black hole affect our galaxy?


I've recently learned that the general consensus is that several (if not, most) galaxies have super massive black holes in their center, in particular the Milky Way. This, at least to me, makes perfect sense seeing as we are in a spiral galaxy which means we need something to "spiral" around (a large body or a bunch of mass).


But seeing as we're rotating around this massive black hole, won't we inevitably end up sucked in by it? Aren't we spinning towards the center of the galaxy, or are we staying steady where we are?



Answer



Look at the question a different way: will the Earth get "sucking into" the sun? Answer: no, it's in orbit.


Now, black holes are a little different because inside 3/2 of the Schwartchild radius there are no stable orbits, but at very large distances gravity is gravity and orbits are orbits.


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