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October 2008 Extra

News: Supermassive black hole at centre of our galaxy

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    • CommentAuthorjamx
    • CommentTimeDec 10th 2008 edited
     
    The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics is reporting finding from a 16 year study which shows a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

    It reportedly has a central mass of 4 million solar masses.

    More can be found at the following:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7774287.stm

    http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2008/pr-46-08.html
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      CommentAuthorleloup
    • CommentTimeDec 10th 2008
     
    I saw this on the Beeb site a little while ago - but I remember last year (?) seeing an animation shown on Sky At Night of stars orbiting the black hole. Does anyone know is this is a separate study or a continuation of the work discussed last year?

    Either way - it's amazing seeing suns orbiting!
  3.  
    @leloup, I thought something very similar because I remember previously seeing the impressive animations on the Max Planck website (http://www.mpe.mpg.de/ir/GC/index.php). It looks as though they've collected more data since then on more stars in the central region and, because they've been observing for some time now, have followed one star for an entire orbit.

    (Written in transit as the Jodcast is heading down to London)
    • CommentAuthorMarkS
    • CommentTimeDec 16th 2008
     
    There is a recent (11/12/08) article in Science News with refined estimates of Sagittarius A*'s mass: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/39274/title/Astronomers_zero_in_on_Milky_Ways_black_hole

    Mark in Dayton
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      CommentAuthorMegan Argo
    • CommentTimeDec 16th 2008
     
    It is the same group, with more results than last time (it's at least the fourth press release on this rather cool study). The positions of the stars have been measured to a very impressive accuracy, and they've improved the measured accuracy of the mass of the black hole (3.95 million solar masses) and distance to the Galactic centre (8.33kpc) as well. One interesting thing with this story is the question of how some of these young stars got to be where they are. They are quite young, young enough that they can't have travelled too far from where they started, but it seems unlikely that they formed where they are as the gravitational influence of a black hole tends to disrupt star formation... Interesting stuff.

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