Definition of supermassive in English:
supermassive
adjective suːpəˈmasɪvˌso͞opərˈmasiv
Astronomy Having a mass many times (typically between 10⁶ and 10⁹ times) that of the sun.
Example sentencesExamples
- Two types of black holes are found in the universe: stellar-mass black holes and supermassive black holes.
- An international team of astronomers have provided compelling evidence that we have a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.
- But others, such as the Milky Way, would still have formed a supermassive black hole despite never being a quasar.
- This discovery suggests that surveys of powerful supermassive black holes have so far underestimated their numbers by at least a factor of two, and possibly by up to a factor of five.
- Although astronomers are surprised to find a blue disk of stars swirling around a supermassive black hole, they also say the puzzling architecture may not be that unusual.