Mastering Mass Measurements By Josh Roberts Black holes seem to
pique everyone’s interest. From the first theories to the first
(indirect) observations, pretty much everyone has wanted to know
more. Unfortunately, black holes have remained notoriously
tight-lipped with their secrets; by definition, these objects
are so massive and compact that light itself cannot escape their
gravitational influence, which makes studying them directly
almost impossible. Most of what we know about black holes has
been inferred from their influence on the objects around them,
such as the incredibly fast stars that orbit the supermassive
black hole in the center of our galaxy (a relatively lightweight
juggernaut that weighs in at merely millions of times the mass
of the Sun). Other galaxies may have similar black holes within
them, but this has been speculation until now. In a recent paper
from Tim Davis, of the University of Hertfordshire, scientists
can observe the carbon dioxide clouds in the center of some
galaxies to measur