RESUMEN
Most massive galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centres, and the masses of the black holes are believed to correlate with properties of the host-galaxy bulge component. Several explanations have been proposed for the existence of these locally established empirical relationships, including the non-causal, statistical process of galaxy-galaxy merging, direct feedback between the black hole and its host galaxy, and galaxy-galaxy merging and the subsequent violent relaxation and dissipation. The empirical scaling relations are therefore important for distinguishing between various theoretical models of galaxy evolution, and they furthermore form the basis for all black-hole mass measurements at large distances. Observations have shown that the mass of the black hole is typically 0.1 per cent of the mass of the stellar bulge of the galaxy. Until now, the galaxy with the largest known fraction of its mass in its central black hole (11 per cent) was the small galaxy NGC 4486B. Here we report observations of the stellar kinematics of NGC 1277, which is a compact, lenticular galaxy with a mass of 1.2 × 10(11) solar masses. From the data, we determine that the mass of the central black hole is 1.7 × 10(10) solar masses, or 59 per cent of its bulge mass. We also show observations of five other compact galaxies that have properties similar to NGC 1277 and therefore may also contain over-massive black holes. It is not yet known if these galaxies represent a tail of a distribution, or if disk-dominated galaxies fail to follow the usual black-hole mass scaling relations.
RESUMEN
Observational work conducted over the past few decades indicates that all massive galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centres. Although the luminosities and brightness fluctuations of quasars in the early Universe suggest that some were powered by black holes with masses greater than 10 billion solar masses, the remnants of these objects have not been found in the nearby Universe. The giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 hosts the hitherto most massive known black hole, which has a mass of 6.3 billion solar masses. Here we report that NGC 3842, the brightest galaxy in a cluster at a distance from Earth of 98 megaparsecs, has a central black hole with a mass of 9.7 billion solar masses, and that a black hole of comparable or greater mass is present in NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in the Coma cluster (at a distance of 103 megaparsecs). These two black holes are significantly more massive than predicted by linearly extrapolating the widely used correlations between black-hole mass and the stellar velocity dispersion or bulge luminosity of the host galaxy. Although these correlations remain useful for predicting black-hole masses in less massive elliptical galaxies, our measurements suggest that different evolutionary processes influence the growth of the largest galaxies and their black holes.
RESUMEN
Small-arm shooting ranges often receive a significant input of lead (Pb), copper (Cu) and antimony (Sb) from ammunition. The goal of the present study was to investigate the mobility, distribution and speciation of Pb and Sb pollution under field conditions in both untreated and sorbent-amended shooting range soil. Elevated Sb (19-349µgL(-1)) and Pb (7-1495µgPbL(-1)) concentrations in the porewater of untreated soil over the four-year test period indicated a long-term Sb and Pb source to the adjacent environment in the absence of remedial measures. Mixing ferric oxyhydroxide powder (CFH-12) (2%) together with limestone (1%) into the soil resulted in an average decrease of Sb and Pb porewater concentrations of 66% and 97%, respectively. A similar reduction was achieved by adding 2% zerovalent iron (Fe°) to the soil. The remediation effect was stable over the four-year experimental period indicating no remobilization. Water- and 1M NH4NO3-extractable levels of Sb and Pb in field soil samples indicated significant immobilization by both treatments (89-90% for Sb and 89-99% for Pb). Results from sequential extraction analysis indicate fixation of Sb and Pb in less accessible fractions like amorphous iron oxides or even more crystalline and residual mineral phases, respectively. This work shows that amendment with Fe-based sorbents can be an effective method to reduce the mobility of metals both in cationic and anionic form in polluted shooting range soil.