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Space/Science » in reply to Unprecedented 16-Year Long Study Tracks Stars Orbiting Milky Way Black Hole

re: Unprecedented 16-Year Long Study Tracks Stars Orbiting Milky Way Black Hole

You beat me to the post....good work. Absolutely amazing!

Primary article -
"In a 16-year long study, using several of ESO's flagship telescopes, a team of German astronomers has produced the most detailed view ever of the surroundings of the monster lurking at our Galaxy's heart — a supermassive black hole. The research has unravelled the hidden secrets of this tumultuous region by mapping the orbits of almost 30 stars, a five-fold increase over previous studies. One of the stars has now completed a full orbit around the black hole...

Undoubtedly the most spectacular aspect of our long term study is that it has delivered what is now considered to be the best empirical evidence that supermassive black holes do really exist. 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," says Genzel. The observations also allow astronomers to pinpoint our distance to the centre of the Galaxy with great precision, which is now measured to be 27,000 light-years."

Different article -
"The Milky Way's core is indeed a very busy place. Stars are packed together like subway riders as they race around the supermassive black hole that lies at the very center. Our sun is located 27,000 light-years away in a more peaceful, spacious neighborhood, out in the galactic suburbs. It circles the galaxy about every 225 million years, which amounts to 20 trips over the course of its 4.5-billion-year lifetime."

ESO

Spitzer

Enjoy, Vince

http://ipac.jpl.nasa.gov/media_images/ssc2006-02a_medium.jpg

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