Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science

The center of our Milky Way (Sgr A*) !!

Here !

Translation:
The central black hole of the Milky Way, approximately 4 million solar masses, has been observed with a precision never obtained before. For the first time, the size of the monster emission source, called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), could be measured: it's as large as a third of the distance between the Sun and the Earth. Too small to be that of the black hole, this size shows clearly that Sgr A* in itself is not the black hole. It's undoubtedly a small overheated area of its immediate surrondings , or perhaps a jet of matter. Other studies will have to refine these results. The technique employed, Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), consists in simultaneously using several radio telescopes at various places on the Earth and connected they form a giant radio telescope. The VLBI enables to obtain a definition quite higher than that of the Hubble space telescope. Carried out by Sheperd Doeleman of Massachusetts Institute off Technology (MIT), the astronomers concentrated on the radio emissions from the black hole at 1,3 mm wavelength. Higher wavelengths reach us less easily since it's the center of the Galaxy. They hope to improve their instruments and to proceed one day to observations with 0,85 mm.

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