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Galaxies and Black Holes
Zooming in to see the central torus of an Active Galaxy.
Notes:
As matter falls toward the black hole, it forms an accretion disk, a flattened disk of material swirling around the black hole. Friction and magnetic forces inside the disk heat it to millions of degrees, and it glows brightly nearly all the way across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves up to X-rays. Although our own Milky Way Galaxy has a central supermassive black hole, it is not an active galaxy. For reasons currently unknown, the black hole at the center of our Galaxy is quiescent, or inactive, as are most present-day galaxies.