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Deep in the Core

Posted by Zonk on from the star-billiards dept.

meehawl writes "A video of what is currently thought to be the closest star to the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. The star orbits the black hole in a highly elliptical orbit with a period of 15 years or so, but at its closest approach it swings within 17 light hours of the black hole (around three times the distance between the Sun and Pluto). In the video, you can see the star ricochet past its closest approach to the black hole. This slingshot effect enabled astronomers to further pinpoint the mass of the black hole, which is confidently estimated at 2 million suns or so. The mass observation, coupled with the size constraints observed, indicates the object at the centre of the galaxy is definitely composed of some exotically dense form of matter."

8 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. UPDATE by dirtsurfer · · Score: 5, Funny

    this slashdot effect enabled astronomers to further pinpoint the mass of the black hole, which is confidently estimated to be somewhere in the server room

  2. Circling the drain by Luigi30 · · Score: 5, Funny

    So our galaxy is like spit bubbles circling the great cosmic drain?

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  3. Brilliant! by mboverload · · Score: 5, Funny

    meehawl: Lets link to a mpg video file on the front page of Slashdot! Nothing could go wrong! Zonk: Brilliant!

    1. Re:Brilliant! by Tyler+Eaves · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's only 500kb. With all the bloat these days, maybe webpages are approaching that size, easily, if you count the size of the images.

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  4. Dave . . . by Seumas · · Score: 5, Funny

    the object at the centre of the galaxy is definitely composed of some exotically dense form of matter.

    Oh my god . . . It's full of politicians and pundits . . . !

  5. Tin foil hat by SkyFire360 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "killing each other" gave us the IP stack of protocols

    It's true, it's true! They say that the war in Iraq is supposed to give us something called IPv6!

  6. 3 year old news, 3 year old video by Darth+Cow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Take a look at the original press release, dated 16 October 2002.

    The article was published in Nature at the same time, and the video isn't new either.

    Remind me why this is going up on Slashdot today?

  7. Re:Watch a little more closely ... by wkitchen · · Score: 5, Interesting
    So if a star (and just think how much mass is in a star compared to you) orbits something in 15 years, you don't think it's just a bit interesting that it covers about half of its entire orbit in one fifteenth of the total time?
    Good point. Also consider that Pluto orbits the sun once every 248 years. This star's nearest approach to the object is about 3 times the distance from pluto to the sun, and since it has an extremely eliptical orbit, it spends most of its time much further away than even that. For it to orbit in 15 years, and to cover the near half of that orbit in only about 1 year, means that the thing it's orbiting is incredibly massive. Even if it isn't a black hole, and even if the fundamental ideas about black holes turned out to be very wrong, you can still bet that, whatever it is, it is something that is similarly strange and interesting.