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Not much. Relative to a star, central supermassive black holes are, well, super-massive. But relative to the total mass of the galaxy, or even just the core reg
by gliese1337 10y ago
Not much. Relative to a star, central supermassive black holes are, well, super-massive. But relative to the total mass of the galaxy, or even just the core region, they aren't that big. The rest of the galaxy will just keep orbiting around its center of gravity, regardless of whether or not there happens to be a black hole there.
- saagarjha 10y agoIn what kind of galaxy is a 1 billion solar mass black hole not a significant portion of the mass?
- idlewords 10y agoPretty much any galaxy. The Milky Way has something like 300 billion stars, with the "average" star weighing 1/4 as much as the sun. So even the stellar mass of a galaxy like ours outweighs such a black hole by two orders of magnitude, and most of a galaxy's mass is dark matter.
- saagarjha 10y agoFor whatever reason I had the number "300 million" in my head for the size of the Milky Way; I see your point.
- LordDragonfang 10y agoWell, for reference, the lower bound on estimates of the mass of the milky way is ~5×10^11 solar masses, so a billion solar mass black whole would account for less than half of a percent of that.