But Levenson and her colleagues say the starbursts are what obscure the energy bursts. How exactly a black hole might cause the starbursts is still in question.
"Something must be tugging on the materials in a starburst region and increasing the chance that the gases there will collect and form stars," Levenson said. "In the Seyfert galaxies, the gravity of the central black hole could be helping to do this."
The findings raise questions about how galaxies evolve.
"We are beginning to realize that starbursts and Seyferts may exert a powerful influence on each other," said Kimberly Weaver, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who also worked on the study.
Starbursts may comprise a significant fraction in the energy output of galaxies like Seyferts, and could also be boosting the output of other distant high-energy sources such as quasars, the researchers said.
Starburst regions are also places of stellar death. And the new study hints at the possibility that matter kicked up by the death of stars -- often in fantastic explosions -- might feed a Seyfert galaxy's black hole. But there’s no direct evidence for this idea, Levenson said.
Data for the study were collected by two satellites, ROSAT and ASCA. The findings were presented November 6 at a meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu.
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