Winston
Lorenzo von Matterhorn
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2009
- Messages
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Star spotted speeding near black hole at centre of Milky Way
Chile’s Very Large Telescope tracks S2 star as it reaches mind-boggling speeds by supermassive black hole
26 Jul 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/science...ding-near-milky-way-black-hole-for-first-time
A major challenge was picking out the faint star 26,000 light years from Earth as it travelled in front of the black hole, which itself is surrounded by a halo of glowing dust and debris.
To achieve this required a telescope powerful enough to see a tennis ball on the moon from Earth and sophisticated systems to correct for vibrations of the telescope and interference from Earth’s atmosphere.
“We have put enormous effort into getting the instruments into good shape before the star approached the black hole,” said Thibaut Paumard, a researcher at the French National Research Institute, the CNRS, in Paris.
As the star made its closest approach to the black hole, at a distance about 120 times the distance between Earth and the sun, it reached a speed of 8,000km/s, or 2.7% of the speed of light.
Sagittarius A*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A*
Sagittarius A* (pronounced "Sagittarius A-star", standard abbreviation Sgr A*) is a bright and very compact astronomical radio source at the center of the Milky Way, near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. It is part of a larger astronomical feature known as Sagittarius A. Sagittarius A* is thought to be the location of a supermassive black hole,[5][6][7] like those that are now generally accepted to be at the centers of most spiral and elliptical galaxies. Observations of the star S2 in orbit around Sagittarius A* have been used to show the presence of, and produce data about, the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole, and have led to the conclusion that Sagittarius A* is the site of that black hole.[8]
4.1 million solar masses
Chile’s Very Large Telescope tracks S2 star as it reaches mind-boggling speeds by supermassive black hole
26 Jul 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/science...ding-near-milky-way-black-hole-for-first-time
A major challenge was picking out the faint star 26,000 light years from Earth as it travelled in front of the black hole, which itself is surrounded by a halo of glowing dust and debris.
To achieve this required a telescope powerful enough to see a tennis ball on the moon from Earth and sophisticated systems to correct for vibrations of the telescope and interference from Earth’s atmosphere.
“We have put enormous effort into getting the instruments into good shape before the star approached the black hole,” said Thibaut Paumard, a researcher at the French National Research Institute, the CNRS, in Paris.
As the star made its closest approach to the black hole, at a distance about 120 times the distance between Earth and the sun, it reached a speed of 8,000km/s, or 2.7% of the speed of light.
Sagittarius A*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A*
Sagittarius A* (pronounced "Sagittarius A-star", standard abbreviation Sgr A*) is a bright and very compact astronomical radio source at the center of the Milky Way, near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. It is part of a larger astronomical feature known as Sagittarius A. Sagittarius A* is thought to be the location of a supermassive black hole,[5][6][7] like those that are now generally accepted to be at the centers of most spiral and elliptical galaxies. Observations of the star S2 in orbit around Sagittarius A* have been used to show the presence of, and produce data about, the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole, and have led to the conclusion that Sagittarius A* is the site of that black hole.[8]
4.1 million solar masses
