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Observational Evidence for Black Holes

Astronomers have discovered two populations of black holes: (i) stellar-mass black holes with masses in the range 5 to 30 solar masses, millions of which are present in each galaxy in the universe, and (ii) supermassive black holes with masses in the range 10^6 to 10^{10} solar masses, one each in the nucleus of every galaxy. There is strong circumstantial evidence that all these objects are true black holes with event horizons. The measured masses of supermassive black hole are strongly correlated with properties of their host galaxies, suggesting that these black holes, although extremely small in size, have a strong influence on the formation and evolution of entire galaxies. Spin parameters have recently been measured for a handful of black holes. Based on the data, there is an indication that the kinetic power of at least one class of relativistic jet ejected from accreting black holes may be correlated with black hole spin. If verified, it would suggest that these jets are powered by a generalized Penrose process mediated by magnetic fields.