by Sadie Jones
So,
super
massive
black
holes
exist.
An actual thing,
at the very centre,
of every galaxy:
remarkable, colossal.
One hundred million suns,
squashed beyond physics.
Wheeled into the classroom, the large TV, the creaky wheels, our teacher, she pushes it and smiles.
I’m sat up front, first wooden bench, high on rickety wooden stool. Everyone is fixated in wonder.
The pure excitement of watching television in a science class. This is today’s lesson, watching TV.
Energy grows in all of us, the expectation, the theatre of it. Trolley wheels stop creaking, centre stage.
The show, Horizon, recorded by the teacher last night, she just had to show it to us all. Today.
The room is silent, brown wooden and cold – outside grey. Here we learn about Biology, normally, nature
but these blackholes on the screen, so big. They are nature too. Apparently,
so the screen says. How can they be? Our very own galaxy,
all the 100 billion galaxies, they all have one. A super massive black hole.
Sarah shouts ‘Is this right Miss? Is this really science?’ Miss responds ‘Yes’.
I’m totally transfixed. Behind me Kelly and Alex are giggling, some gossip,
but I don’t care. This new information, immense. My mind sparked. I didn’t know!
Could our Milky Way galaxy really be the host of something so enormous?
The scale and mass of it. It’s all so vast. Yet, it is… real.
The centre of everything.
You can do it. You. Make maps of active galactic nuclei A.K.A supermassive black holes.
See, examine. Be the first. You know, some have jets that extend for hundreds of light years.
Some don’t. It’s a mystery. You’ll get paid – to look at space, explore, travel to big telescopes.
Be the first to unravel it all, analyse data – this puzzling light.
You will be the centre. No-one else. No-one before you,
not this galaxy anyway, not in this way. It’s an enigma,
this science,
a dark art.
Radio waves
extending,
tracing jets.
X-rays too,
mapping
the swirl.
Become
an artist,
a witch.
Interpret
EM light.
The secrets.
The event
horizon.
Singularity.
It will be you.
You, the centre.