URN

On the 21st November, we spoke to Dr Omar Almaini from the astronomy department about Supermassive Black Holes.

No. This does not mean an analysis of the underlying rhythm and structure of the Muse song.

We discussed:
- How do black holes form?
- What happens as you get closer to a black hole?
- What are quasars and active galaxies?
- Why don't black holes keep 'sucking stuff in'?

This is an artist's impression of a black hole:

Supermassive Black Hole

And here are some black holes (or Active Galactic Nuclei - AGN) for real:

AGN

To see a movie of the black hole at the centre of our galaxy (made with photos of real astronomical observations), please follow the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOW-NYPEp84&feature=relmfu

We talked about spaghettification earlier, here's a artists impression to make you smile!
Spaghettification

So how big is a black hole in comparison to an everyday place?

Black hole size comparison

Today we shall be talking to our resident scientific expert, Boris Haeussler, about Galaxy Zoo.

Zoo

No! Not that kind of zoo.

Anyway, below are a couple of examples of galaxies that might make an appearance on Galaxy Zoo, the website where non-scientists are encouraged to take part in real astronomy research and classify galaxies.
Galaxies

On the left is M87, an elliptical galaxy which is part of the Virgo Cluster. On the right is an example of a beautiful spiral galaxy. Computers are rubbish at telling the difference between different shapes and morphologies of galaxies, which is why citizen science is a much better concept.

As well as classifying galaxies, you might find some other interesting looking objects. The Galaxy Zoo project managed to find galaxies that looked like every letter in the alphabet. Take a look at the picture below...

The Alphabet in Galaxies

Here are some links that you also might enjoy if you want to make a contribution to science:

Galaxy Zoo -
www.galaxyzoo.org/

Medical Research -