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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."

12 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. We're living in an accretion disk by John+Hasler · · Score: 5, Interesting

    n/t

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  2. About time! by Jugalator · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Seriously (surely no one missed the bad relativity joke in that title :-p) though, are black holes really still considered theoretical constructs? For example, Wikipedia starts with "A black hole is a theoretical region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that ...". And for Wikipedia haters, this is repeated in literature too.

    Meanwhile, in this article -- "the best empirical evidence that super-massive black holes do exist". And besides, I thought many scientific articles bring up black holes now and then without questioning, anyway.

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    1. Re:About time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      black holes are mainly mathematical constructs. In science, whenever you have a singularity (division by zero, computer fella...) you have a problem in your theory.

      Quantum physics frameworks address this singularity removing the possibility of having the zero in the first place, still this is seen as cheating by the scientific community, as mathematics and formulas and tricks doesn't explain anything.

      Black holes are very real, by the definition of region of spaces where the gravity is so strong that even light could not escape, but at the same time very theoretical, "mathematical", constructs.

    2. Re:About time! by Sanat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      A new theory still being explored is that each galaxy has two black holes. One is intake and one is output. In addition it appears that these galaxies are strung on a cord of high dimensional energy with each end looping back to or near what may be the Universe's center. This is much like a loose strung string of pearls with each pearl being a galaxy.

      The two black holes are not like the two holes in a button but rather like a button with one hole on each side. What occurs where the two black holes meet is not understood.

      A car analogy... One side of the galaxy is like the intake valve on an engine. The other side of the galaxy is like the exhaust valve... what is not understood is how the engine works and how it apparently takes little or no space in the galaxy itself... as if it resides in a much higher dimension that needs virtually no space.

      I wonder what would we see if our planet resided on the other edge of the galaxy?

       

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    3. Re:About time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Or a remarkably long period.

    4. Re:About time! by drerwk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I suggest that gravitational waves might be a way other than Hawking radiation. And depending on what you mean by directly detect; if we get a nice image of something behind the black hole that would be good too. ASAIK the only issue remaining was could the mass be some exotic form of matter like quark soup. And I thought this had been resolved already, so I'm not sure what is supposed to be new in the report.

    5. Re:About time! by MightyMartian · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We have as much proof of their existence as one would have of, say, an electron. That is, we have theories that make predictions about the effects of such entities, and thus far those predictions have panned out. There's no 100% in any branch of science, that's not how science is played.

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    6. Re:About time! by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Quantum physics frameworks address this singularity removing the possibility of having the zero in the first place, still this is seen as cheating by the scientific community, as mathematics and formulas and tricks doesn't explain anything.

      What exactly do you mean? in my lectures on quantum mechanics 0 was a very real answer, and if you got a 0 out in the wrong place it meant your wave-function was invalid.

      I also disagree that mathematical tricks cant give you a very real value for situations when you have to divide by 0 if you don't use them.

      For example the integral of [ e^nx * e^-mx dx] is 1/(m-n)[e^nx * e^-mx] when n=m this requires dividing by zero but if you spot the mathematical trick that m=n is a special case when you are integrating [0 dx] and so get x

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    7. Re:About time! by Xelios · · Score: 2, Interesting

      See my reply to post above. Though I'd offer a question, could you prove the existence of a pen through ink written on paper?

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    8. Re:About time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      > And if so we will have a remarkably short period of time to write a paper about it.

      depending where our audience is

  3. Re:I guess that... by StikyPad · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When viewed from Europe and Australia, the Milky Way has only nougat at the center. When viewed from the US, it has nougat and caramel. Discuss.

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  4. Re:I guess that... by Kingrames · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't doubt that someday we will find a way to travel at faster than light speed, and when we do, we'll be able to travel out to space, faster than light, then take a 90 degree turn, travel a bit longer, and point some telescopes at earth. (or in the direction of where it was). Then we will have at our disposal, a complete chronology of all human history under the sun.

    Those that do this, I'd call them Light-Scholars. Because it sounds cool.

    And it would be awesome to be there, when they do this.

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