Milky Way/ Black hole confirmed

[ddd999]

Tuesday, 9 December 2008


There is a giant black hole at the centre of our galaxy, a study has confirmed.

German astronomers tracked the movement of 28 stars circling the centre of the Milky Way, using two telescopes in Chile.
The black hole is four million times more massive than our Sun, according to the paper in The Astrophysical Journal.

LINK

The researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany said the black hole was 27,000 light years, or 158 thousand, million, million miles from the Earth.


"Undoubtedly the most spectacular aspect of our 16-year study, is that it has delivered what is now considered to be the best empirical evidence that super-massive black holes do really exist," said Professor Reinhard Genzel, head of the research team. "The stellar orbits in the galactic centre show that the central mass concentration of four million solar masses must be a black hole, beyond any reasonable doubt."

 

[mike]

we kinda sorta suspected, but this is a significant bit of data

thanks

 

[Gil Bavel]

Observations aside, I'm not sure this theory was really in doubt. Every galaxy* has a supermassive black hole at the center of it; it's believed that it's part of the creation process of galaxies.

When galaxies accrete, a black hole is spawned, and eventually siphons off all the densest matter at the center, allowing the real estate further out to be habitable... like, where we are.
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*This applies to regular galaxies in their natural life cycles, not dwarf galaxies or dead galactic matter that hasn't quite drifted away or been pulled into new proto-stars.

 

[ddd999]

Observations aside, I'm not sure this theory was really in doubt.

Well that's the whole point, it ain't just a theory no more...

"The stellar orbits in the galactic centre show that the central mass concentration of four million solar masses must be a black hole, beyond any reasonable doubt."

Alignment of the center of the Milky Way galaxy, our sun, earth, and the large planets.... 2012 here I come!!!!

 

[Gareth]

Pretty cool. How many solar systems in our galaxy?

 

[mike]

Pretty cool. How many solar systems in our galaxy?

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galaxy.html


http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/milkyway.html

The Sun is just one of 200 billion stars in this typical barred-spiral galaxy that is about 90 000 light years in diameter.

 

[ddd999]

... that is about 90 000 light years in diameter.

That would be one hell of a road trip vacation.

 

[skunkape]