4 ms·

I’d actually love to get an explanation for this. Do galaxies work similar to solar systems in that all objects are in orbit around a central mass or is it a di

• Merad 9y ago
  I believe the current theory is that most (all?) galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their heart.
  • muthdra 9y ago
    Yeah, or so I heard. What's the cause and effect order for galaxies and their corresponding supermassive black holes?
• kwoff 9y ago
  Planets orbit around the center of mass. It's coincidental that the center of mass is (at least in our case) at the sun's location, because the sun has most of the mass.
• mutagen 9y ago
  The mass of the central black hole is a tiny fraction of the mass of the galaxy, it might be more correct to say that the objects in a galaxy orbit the common mass (including dark matter) of the galaxy. For example, the black hole at the center of the Milky way is estimated at 4.1×10^6 M (solar mass) and the total Milky Way mass is estimated at 0.8–1.5×10^12 M (figures from Wikipedia). Some interesting articles found while digging for these numbers: https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Merritt/Merritt1.html https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Merritt/Merritt1.html https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/420/4/3621/975383 https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/420/4/3621/975383 https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/414/3/2446/1042117 https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/414/3/2446/1042117