Primordial Groove

Your thoughts?

My thoughts are this is beyond me. Fascinating though.

Friar Bellows

One aspect of these supermassive galactic black holes which interests me is that if you were sucked into one of them you could cross the event horizon without being crushed (or stretched) by the tidal forces. But you would eventually be crushed as you came nearer the singularity. Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid the singularity once you've crossed the event horizon (and the more you struggle, the sooner you'll reach the singularity). For a regular stellar black hole, on the other hand, you would be crushed by the tidal forces before you crossed the event horizon.

Friar Bellows

As for galaxy mergers, one theory I've read about (I don't know if it's a recent theory or an old one) is that elliptical galaxies can form when two spiral galaxies merge together. One piece of evidence for this is that many elliptical galaxies appear to have two distinct populations of globular clusters: old and new. The old globulars presumably formed in the original spiral galaxies, while the new globulars formed during the merger process. Indeed, observations of mergers in progress often show brand new globular clusters being formed.