Black holes, due to their destructive capacities and abnormal capability to distort space time, have become a beloved subject for science fiction novelists. Nonetheless, black holes are no fiction. For decades they were acknowledged as the most devastating force in the Universe. These days, owing to the chain of astounding findings, the perception of supermassive black holes has experienced an impressive transformation. Scientists have discovered that these objects may have played crucial role in the formation of the early universe, generating the formation of stars, planets, or even life itself. “They may have contributed as much as half of all the radiation produced after the Big Bang, and at least 300 million of them may now be lurking through the vast expanses of the observable cosmos. The most accessible among them appears to be lurking at the Center of our own Galaxy” (Science Daily)

Hundreds of black holes are out there all over the Universe. But what are they? The formation, structure and functioning of black holes have now been studied for almost a century. With the evolution of scientific opportunities, astronomers managed to provide numerous surprising and exciting discoveries. To understand the nature of supermassive black holes it is crucial to first analyze the fundamental essence of the black holes in general, since supermassive black holes are not a separate phenomenon but rather a subtype.

Black holes are extremely compact objects, with ordinary gravity developed to such an extent that it overpowers all other forces in the Universe. In other words, being small and containing huge mass, it is strong enough to prevent anything, including light, from escaping its surface. Once inside, nothing can break away from a black hole’s gravity, not even a single spot of light. (1)

Nobody has yet discovered a black hole for sure. To verify that those spectacularly powerful compact objects discerned in the sky are the actual black holes, astronomers would have to identify and measure the effects that only a black hole is able to cuase. However, how could human beings, with our comparatively limited scientific methods, measure a harsh bending of a light beam or an extreme slowing of time? Therefore, we can now only hypothesize on the nature of black holes, not yet ready to deal with these monsters physically.

Because of lacking possibilities to actually observe them directly, research on black holes has been doomed to linger on for decades, scientists dealing with hypotheses blindly. Albert Einstein’ general theory of relativity first allowed for the assumptions concerning the existence of these fantastic phenomena. However, French scientist Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827) was one of the first who proposed the probable existence of black holes. Basing his 18th century discussions on the already known laws of gravity, he theorized that the objects, smaller in size and yet more massive than others, produce greater gravitational force. He was also the first to assume that if an object was either particularly massive or exceptionally small, it might not be achievable at all to break out of its surface.

In 19^th century the term “black hole” was first introduced by American physicist John Archibald Wheeler. He was also the one who initiated advanced studies of black holes’ nature, and made significant contributions into the discovery of their properties. It has been found out by numerous challenged scientists that space and time in close proximity to black holes takes on many extraordinary qualities.

The day finally came when astronomers recovered their sight, – the Hubble Space Telescope was constructed. “Revealing in 1994 that something was orbiting rapidly around the nuclei of some distant galaxies, suggesting the presence of a huge mass contained in a very small area,” it has finally presented the first factual proof of the existence of supermassive black holes. From that moment on, the huge, high-resolution ground telescopes including the Hubble, the Keck, NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and others “have begun to unravel more about these central black holes — which can be as large as the distance from the sun to well past Mars, and as small as New Jersey” (Kaufman).