The Center of the Galaxy

Dr. A. van Code writes: "NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured a stunning view of the center of our Milky Way galaxy, with hundreds of white dwarf stars, neutron stars and black holes bathed in an incandescent fog of 10-million-degree gas around a supermassive black hole. Daniel Wang of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and co-workers took the 30 separate images covering a 400- by 900-light-year swath of the center of the galaxy, a region 26,000 light years away from Earth, using the orbiting X-ray satellite's Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS). His paper appears in the Jan. 10, 2002, issue of the journal Nature. There is also a Chandra page at Harvard, and an AP wire story."

Where were they 3 months ago?

[EnVisiCrypt]

So where were these pictures 3 months ago when evidence was found that a black hole is at the center of our galaxy [slashdot.org]? It seemed like a big deal at the time... Had no one thought of pointing a camera at the middle of the galaxy until recently?

Re:Where were they 3 months ago?

[redcliffe]

The problem is that there is a heck of a lot of dust, and stars in the way. You need to try and peer between the stars, and through the dust. Visible light just won't do it. Often they use infrared, radio or x-ray for this. This one is an X-ray image.

Re:Where were they 3 months ago?

[Gyl]

the other thing you might consider is that, maybe they were pointing the camera there, and they only released the images now, once they have finished the research paper to go with it.

Re:Where were they 3 months ago?

[Tablizer]

Boy, are astronomers gonna be embarrassed if it turns out that there really is no black hole there, just a big raincloud extinquishing all the stars and protecting the lead oboliscs that cause all the gravity.

A bit grainy

[imrdkl]

Downloading the medium image yields an approximate screen ratio:

1 pixel = 1/2 light year

Multicolored Stars

[omarius]

Why do the stars look like multicolored Christmas tree lights? Is that a function of different spectrum shifts of X-rays, or is it just for "fun?"

-Omar

Re:Multicolored Stars

[anxious]

Remember, this is an X-Ray image. The picture is a false color image that shows 3 different colors: blue for high energy, green for medium energy and red for low energy. I first saw this at the Astronomy Picture of the Day [nasa.gov].

Re:Multicolored Stars

[esonik]

from the chandra site [harvard.edu]:

The supermassive black hole at the center of the Galaxy is located inside the bright white patch in the center of the image. The colors indicate X-ray energy bands - red (low), green (medium), and blue (high).

Also very interesting is the part about chandra's hardware [harvard.edu]. It's not at all easy to make optics for x-rays.

Daniel Wang's Research Group

[Nissyen]

For more information about the research that Daniel Wang and his group are doing at UMass amherst you can visit his website [umass.edu].

Looks EXACTLY like

[Linux_ho]

special effects from the original Stsr Trek. I used to think it was just because they didn't have a lot of money for effects. Now I suspect Gene Roddenberry was actually an extraterrestrial come to earth to help advance our civilization. And to make it with hot earth chicks, of course.

Re:Looks EXACTLY like

[Linux_ho]

No accounting for the tastes of extraterrestrials.