Feb 20, 2015 11:48 AM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A group of Harvard researchers recently analyzed the relationship between supermassive black holes and the galaxies they inhabit.

According a Harvard news release, black holes are mostly associated with destruction, but the researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have found they may also have a hand in formation. The study is awaiting publication in the Astrophysical Journal.

"There seems to be a mysterious link between the amount of dark matter a galaxy holds and the size of its central black hole, even though the two operate on vastly different scales," study lead author Akos Bogdan said the release.

The team noted that all massive galaxies have black holes at their center and the size of each are correlated with one another. For the study, Bogdan and his team examined the relationship of a supermassive black hole and its dark matter halo.

Dark matter may be invisible to the unaided eye, but it outnumbers the matter humans can see and understand by about six-to-one. Dark matter makes up the majority of our universe.

Andy Goulding, a scientist at Princeton University who has observed thousands of elliptical galaxies, aided the Harvard CfA researchers. The team saw a direct correlation between a black hole's mass and that of its dark matter halo.

"In effect, the act of merging creates a gravitational blueprint that the galaxy, the stars, and the black hole will follow in order to build themselves," Bogdan said.

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