At the Center of the Milky Way

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At the Center of the Milky Way
Credit: Rainer Schödel (MPE) et al., NAOS-CONICA, ESO

At the center of our Milky Way Galaxy lies a black hole with over 2 million times the mass of the Sun. Once a controversial claim, this astounding conclusion is now virtually inescapable and based on observations of stars orbiting very near the galactic center. Using one of the Paranal Observatory's very large telescopes and the sophisticated infrared camera NACO, astronomers patiently followed the orbit of a particular star, designated S2, as it came within about 17 light-hours of the center of the Milky Way (17 light-hours is only about 3 times the radius of Pluto's orbit). Their results convincingly show that S2 is moving under the influence of the enormous gravity of an unseen object which must be extremely compact -- a supermassive black hole. This deep NACO near-infrared image shows the crowded inner 2 light-years of the Milky Way with the exact position of the galactic center indicated by arrows. NACO's ability to track stars so close to the galactic center can accurately measure the black hole's mass and perhaps even provide an unprecedented test of Einstein's theory of gravity as astronomers watch a star orbit a supermassive black hole.

 

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IBmegastar

 

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You can bet they were using the "Par-Anal" Observatory all right. The center of the galaxy looks more like it would be that megastar in the top center of the picture. And why do they say the black hole is just the size of two million star, condensed..that is? Why isn't it as big as this super black hole in the center of this galaxy?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980223.html

Which is a billion star mass, condensed..that is, or so the proponents of the wishy-washy theory school would have the gullible among us believe.

Or maybe they're just coming out with all these "black hole" confirmations lately so everyone can appreciate the ridiculousness of them and then they are going to trash the theory and start talking realistically about astrophysics. Sort of like having an end of summer bash.

 

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When they say billion times the mass of our Sun, it doesn't mean its billion times the size, a black hole is a collasped star, so it shrinks and retains a big mass.

When they say the center, do they mean the geometric center or the place where everything revolves around?

Why must it be extremely compact? The center of the galaxy is extremely far away and some of those dots towards the center of the picture might be as big as that one in the upper center of the picture.

The picture looks like something from Close Encounters.

 

ummm

im confused

if you think black holes are bull shit what DOES happen when a big star colapes?

 

Trust me, dude, you don't want to get him started.

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- Warren

 

John's a very skeptical person, he'll try to prove it to you if he believes it enough.

 

I posted this one as it seems to be central to some of the topics being discussed. I thought I would probably add fuel to the fire...

 

The heat is warming my hands!

This claim, not unlike many or all of your others (pick one), is ludicrous.

Quite the summer bash, it's been going on for a few decades now I think...
I don't believe that statement.

 

The center of the galaxy looks more like it would be that megastar in the top center of the picture.

Thinking in two dimensions will make a molehill out of a mountain.

And why do they say the black hole is just the size of two million star, condensed..that is? Why isn't it as big as this super black hole in the center of this galaxy?

One in the same, perhaps?

Or maybe they're just coming out with all these "black hole" confirmations lately so everyone can appreciate the ridiculousness of them and then they are going to trash the theory and start talking realistically about astrophysics.

Or maybe, just maybe, the observations fit the theory. Stranger things have happened, John.

 

John's a contrarian. He's not a Skeptic.

You insult thinking people world-wide. Unthinkingly, no doubt.

 

Well, lets discuss stars burning for starters. All the time that a star is burning it is shedding it's mass in the form of heat, light, smoke and whatever other ejections leave the star and are carried out into space. So for every day that a star shines it becomes a little smaller. While the star is shedding it's mass into space, a representative portion of it's gravitational strength is ejected with each portion of material that is ejected. So as the star burns it's mass becomes less and it's gravity becomes less and eventually it will burn up so much of it's fuel that it will not be able to remain reactive, and it will flame out. Once the star has burned out, it will remain as a dark hulk in space or be torn apart at some point and become asteroidal.

 

Your joking right?

a star burns out when the simple elements become the highest they can (in the size we are talking about iron)

its still there

only a fraction is converted to radiation

 

What??????? Smoke??????

John, please...

 

One solar luminosity is 3.826 x 10e33 erg/s (Modern Astrophys., Carroll and Ostlie, 1996).

This corresponds to a mass loss of m = E/c^2 = 4.25x10^12 g/s.

The solar mass is measured to be 1.989 x 10^33 g (Modern Astrophys., Carroll and Ostlie, 1996).

At this rate, the Sun will convert all its mass into energy in 14.815 trillion years, or approximately one thousand times the currently accepted age of the universe (~15Gyr).

That's all the heat and light loss. If you want to account for the escaping electron neutrinos, each of which can have a mass no larger than 3eV, the figure changes by about 10%.

At a mass loss rate of 4.25 x 10^12 g/s, the Sun has lost 6.7 x 10^29 g over the course of its 5 billion years on the main sequence.

That mass loss corresponds to 0.03% of the Sun's starting mass. Over the course of 5 billion years, the Sun has become 0.03% less massive.

I'm going to ask you, John, how much of a difference you expect that 0.03% to make.

Flame out? Asteroidal?

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Shut up, John.

- Warren

 

very interesting

of course there is no "megastar"- it's a black hole.
such a massive star would
1- collapse into itself as a black hole
2- if not (by some mirracle) then it would burn out in about a year (estimation) - so much for the centre of galaxy

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That's exactly what I said.

 

sorry, didn't read up to you

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Hey,...what's with you guys? Are you telling me you don't understand the relation between burning and the dispersion of energy? And you never heard of ejecta leaving the sun? Such as this?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020516.html

Hmmmmm.....maybe you guys are only pretending to be at Berkeley and you're really at St.Joseph's Junior High. Well,...that's it! No more video games for you! And no more MTV! And I'm cancelling Halloween!! All day long I'm beset by the Barons, who don't understand my obligations and now I have to endure the ridicule of....of ....Stuudenntts!!...... AAAAAHHHHHH!!!

 

John, I think the calculations took solar flares into account

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