6 The key questions
Some of the most important issues which astronomers working in this field are currently trying to resolve are:
How and when did the supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies form?
What role did the central black holes play in the formation of galaxies?
To what extent are the observed differences between AGN attributable to the orientation at which we view them?
What governs the evolution of individual AGN, and of the Universe's population of AGN?
Is there a link between AGN and star formation?
These points are covered in more detail in Block 4 of the Open University course, S381 The Energetic Universe, from which this course is taken.