AGN

"It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure." -Joseph Campbell Ever since we created a question/suggestion box here, we've been deluged by far more excellent questions than one person could possibly answer, but that doesn't mean we aren't trying! For this week's Ask Ethan, our question comes from long-time fan and reader crd2, who asks: As we look at the furthest quasars we see they have supermassive black holes, as large as 109 solar masses. By what mechanism are they able to reach such large sizes over so short a…

"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave." -Patrick Henry It's not a good idea to showcase a galaxy for you every Messier Monday, considering that even a crescent Moon can render most of them completely unobservable. Now that the autumnal equinox has passed, however, a very special spiral will be visible after sunset for the next six months or so in a relatively nondescript part of the night sky. Out of the 110 deep-sky objects that comprise the Messier catalogue, a full forty of them are galaxies, although today's object wasn't recognized as…