Yes
“I believe this has got to be the dominant method for growing supermassive black holes,” he adds. “There are two ways to grow a supermassive black hole: with gas clouds and with stars. Sometimes there’s gas and sometimes there is not. April 2, 2012 – A study led by a University of Utah astrophysicist found a new explanation for the growth of supermassive black holes in the center of most galaxies: they repeatedly capture and swallow single stars from pairs of stars that wander too close. Best Answer: Black holes grow whenever they consume large amounts of mass. The mass adds to their total mass, which increases their gravity and makes their event horizons larger. However, in the long run, all black holes will eventually shrink and ultimately explode due to Hawking radiation.  Astronomers know of two flavors of black holes: stellar-mass, which are up to a few dozen times the mass of Earth's sun, and massive, which can be billions of times the sun's mass — nearly the mass of all the stars in the entire Milky Way galaxy. Black holes have gravitational pulls so powerful, nothing can escape, not even light. Astronomers began mulling over the possibility of black holes in 1783, and scientists used Einstein's theory of general relativity to predict black holes in 1916. After a black hole has formed, it can continue to grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. By absorbing other stars and merging with other black holes, supermassive black holes of millions of solar masses (M☉) may form. There is general consensus that supermassive black holes exist in the centers of most galaxies.  Black holes can also consume material torn from nearby stars. In fact, the most massive black holes can swallow stars whole. Black holes can also grow by colliding and merging with other black holes. This growth process is what can reveal the presence of a black hole. Black Holes: Gravity's Relentless Pull. JavaScript must be installed and turned on in your browser to view content on most pages of this site, including Journey to a Black hole. If you experience other problems, verify that your setup matches the Technical Requirements for this site. The new observations argue against one popular theory of black hole growth, which holds that the objects bulk up in size through galaxy collisions. When our universe was young, galaxies were more likely to crash into others and merge. It is possible the galaxies' black holes merged too, accumulating more mass.  These simulations show that it is no longer possible to argue that black holes in spiral galaxies do not grow efficiently, study lead author Victor Debattista, of the University of Central Lancashire in England, said in a statement. Supermassive black holes are almost incomprehensibly huge, with some containing 10 billion or more times the mass of our own sun. The research team used computer simulations to investigate how such black holes grow, especially in spiral galaxies like the Earth's Milky Way. They grow by accreting matter that falls into them (it doesn't get sucked into a black hole!). Stellar-mass black holes (black holes with the sun's mass or perhaps up to 50 times as much) can double their mass by accreting material from a companion star. Supermassive black holes may grow by absorbing millions of stars over the course of billions of years.  Black holes pull matter and even energy into themselves—but no more so than other stars or cosmic objects of similar mass. That means that a black hole with the mass of our own sun would not suck objects into it any more than our own sun does with its own gravitational pull. Planets, light, and other matter must pass close to a black hole in order to be pulled into its grasp. Extremely large black holes may exist at the center of some galaxies—including our own Milky Way. These massive features may have the mass of 10 to 100 billion suns. They are similar to smaller black holes but grow to enormous size because there is so much matter in the center of the galaxy for them to add. Anything that enters the event horizon cannot escape the black hole's gravity. So objects that do not keep a safe distance get swallowed. Despite their reputation, black holes will not actually suck in objects from large distances. A black hole can only capture objects that come very close to it. They're more like Venus' Flytraps than cosmic vacuum cleaners. For example, imagine replacing the Sun by a black hole of the same mass. Black Holes: Gravity's Relentless Pull. JavaScript must be installed and turned on in your browser to view content on most pages of this site, including Journey to a Black hole. If you experience other problems, verify that your setup matches the Technical Requirements for this site.
http://archive.unews.utah.edu/news_releases/how-black-holes-grow/ https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080919190505AA2GCO9 http://www.space.com/16861-giant-black-holes-growth-mystery.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/black_holes/encyc_mod3_q9.html http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-093 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/13/black-holes-grow-supermassive_n_2676945.html http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q331.html http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/universe/black-holes-article/ http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/black_holes/encyc_mod3_q9.html
do black holes grow