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Black Hole At Center of Milky Way Confirmed

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-can-see-it-from-here dept.

Smivs writes "The BBC are reporting that a German team has confirmed the existence of a Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers tracked the movement of 28 stars circling the center of the Milky Way, using the 3.5m New Technology Telescope and the 8.2m Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. Both are operated by the European Southern Observatory (Eso). The black hole is four million times heavier than our Sun, according to the paper in The Astrophysical Journal. According to Dr Robert Massey, of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), the results suggest that galaxies form around giant black holes in the way that a pearl forms around grit."

11 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. Let me be the first to say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Boy, that sucks.

    1. Re:Let me be the first to say by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Funny

      I agree. This is conclusive proof that the human race is circling the drain.

  2. It always bothered me... by cjfs · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... that they have names (Antu, Kueyen, Melipal, Yepun) for the individual telescopes in the VLT, but could only come up with "very large telescope" for the whole array.

    Please include at least a transformers reference in the next one. Thanks.

  3. Re:OMG we are all going to die by cjfs · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ahhh arts students, the sort of people who fall for...

    At least they make good venti iced soy mochas ;-)

  4. Re:About time! by zaxus · · Score: 5, Funny

    >"four million times heavier than our sun"

    Can we please stop with the "yo mama" jokes? Please? :-)

    --
    /. zen: Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Beowulf clusters...
  5. Re:About time! by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well... how can we prove black holes exist ?
    (I mean... the astrophysics thing)

    Good thing you put the 'astrophysics thing' on there. Otherwise we might have seen one of the few instances where a goatse link would be considered ontopic.

    --
    This guy's the limit!
  6. So we've found life? by msauve · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...or the remants of it, anyway.

    Someone at the center of our galaxy obviously beat us to getting their Large Hadron Collider working before we did.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  7. Re:I guess that... by Centurix · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've seen Black Perl, it was ALL regular expressions. So many that there was a regular expression event horizon, with only preceding elements escaping and at the center was a nondeterministic finite automata. Quite a sight.

    --
    Task Mangler
  8. Re:Yes, that makes lots of sense. by snspdaarf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Analogies form in the mind of submitters and editors of slashdot the same way driftwood washes up in the beaches of South Carolina.

    Soaking wet, and surrounded by syringes and condoms?

    --
    Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
  9. Re:I guess that... by Ikcor · · Score: 5, Funny

    Most Milky Ways have a creamy nougat center.

  10. Re:OMG we are all going to die by GMonkeyLouie · · Score: 5, Funny

    I swear to God, this one guy in a philosophy class I was in was telling some girl about the limits of science, and how there are just so many things we don't know for sure.... he goes:

    "Take water for example" ::air quotes with his fingers and sarcastic voice:: "H Two Oh?" ::exasperated superiority:: "We don't know that!"

    I spent an entire fifty minute lecture secretly pointing a laser pointer at his genitals, doing my part for the human race.