A book on "Cosmic Wonders" is being prepared to be used as a
middle school textbook on general astronomy. In addition to the main
content exposition, the book is to contain "boxes", of about 1000 words each,
printed and double-spaced, illustrating in vivid detail special astrophysical concepts. You
are to write one of such "boxes" to accompany the attached image.
The general theme for the discussion you should prepare
is "Supermassive Black Holes in the Local Group". You have quite a bit of
latitude about what information you might include in your write-up, but
keep in mind the audience and stick to information relevant to the theme.
Among the guidelines the editor provides you with are the
following:
- Be sure to explain what is seen in the image.
- Be quantitative where you can be. You should not write out equations, but
any numbers you use should be correct.
- Previous sections in the book will explain
the concept of light year, light month, light seconds etc., but not parsecs.
- Previous sections in the book with explain black holes in general. Other boxes
will present supernovae, X-ray binary stars and stellar mass black holes.
- Terms like "Schwarschild radius", "escape velocity", "doppler shift",
"Milky Way Galaxy" and "Local Group" will have been introduced.
- Discuss at least three supermassive black holes in the Local Group and
give quantitative data on their masses, distances from us, and other detail relevant
to your discussion.
- Also discuss basic information about the galaxies in which those SMBHs reside. Compare
and contrast where you can.
- Explain the methods used to infer the existence of the three supermassive
black holes that you discuss. Give some general detail on the observations, the telescopes
and the techniques used to estimate the masses of the SMBHs.
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