Observations indicate that each galaxy contains a supermassive black hole at its center. These black holes can be hundreds of thousands to billions of times more massive than the Sun. Astronomers estimate the size of such black holes using multiple methods. One method, using the orbits of stars around the black hole, is an application of Kepler's third law. The mass of the black hole can be found by using the given equation, where a is the semi-major axis in astronomical units, P is the period in years, and k is a constant with a value of 1 Mo X year² / AU³. a³ M = k- p² What is the mass of a supermassive black hole if a star orbits it with a semimajor axis of 959 AU and a period of 13.3 years? mass: Another method measures the speed of gas moving past the black hole. In the given equation, v is the velocity of the gas (in kilometers per second), r is the distance of the gas cloud from the black hole (in kilometers), and G is Newton's gravitational constant. In this equation, G = 1.33 × 10¹¹ km³/(Mos²). M v²r G What is the mass of a supermassive black hole if the velocity is measured to be 265 km/s and the distance is measured to be 7.63 x 10¹2 km? mass: Mo Mo

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Chapter1: Units, Trigonometry. And Vectors
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Observations indicate that each galaxy contains a supermassive black hole at its center. These black holes can be hundreds of
thousands to billions of times more massive than the Sun. Astronomers estimate the size of such black holes using
multiple methods.
One method, using the orbits of stars around the black hole, is an application of Kepler's third law. The mass of the black hole
can be found by using the given equation, where a is the semi-major axis in astronomical units, P is the period in years, and k is
a constant with a value of 1 Mo X year²/ AU³.
a³
M = k-
p²
What is the mass of a supermassive black hole if a star orbits it with a semimajor axis of 959 AU and a period of 13.3 years?
mass:
Another method measures the speed of gas moving past the black hole. In the given equation, v is the velocity of the gas (in
kilometers per second), r is the distance of the gas cloud from the black hole (in kilometers), and G is Newton's gravitational
constant. In this equation, G = 1.33 × 10¹¹ km³/(Mos²).
M
mass:
v²r
G
What is the mass of a supermassive black hole if the velocity is measured to be 265 km/s and the distance is measured to
be 7.63 x 10¹2 km?
Mo
Mo
Transcribed Image Text:Observations indicate that each galaxy contains a supermassive black hole at its center. These black holes can be hundreds of thousands to billions of times more massive than the Sun. Astronomers estimate the size of such black holes using multiple methods. One method, using the orbits of stars around the black hole, is an application of Kepler's third law. The mass of the black hole can be found by using the given equation, where a is the semi-major axis in astronomical units, P is the period in years, and k is a constant with a value of 1 Mo X year²/ AU³. a³ M = k- p² What is the mass of a supermassive black hole if a star orbits it with a semimajor axis of 959 AU and a period of 13.3 years? mass: Another method measures the speed of gas moving past the black hole. In the given equation, v is the velocity of the gas (in kilometers per second), r is the distance of the gas cloud from the black hole (in kilometers), and G is Newton's gravitational constant. In this equation, G = 1.33 × 10¹¹ km³/(Mos²). M mass: v²r G What is the mass of a supermassive black hole if the velocity is measured to be 265 km/s and the distance is measured to be 7.63 x 10¹2 km? Mo Mo
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