If you have ever paid a visit
to the Wetherbee Planetarium
here at Thronateeska Heritage Center, chances are you have heard a good
deal about our film, “Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity.” In
the film, all manner of evidence is put forward about the existence of a black
hole in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The film describes research done at
the Keck Telescope in Hawai’i, where several stars have been recorded orbiting
in a very strange manner around...something...at the center of the Milky Way.
SPACE.com, today (04.05.12), published
more information detailing recent studies on this supposed supermassive black
hole at the center of the Milky Way. Telescopes have yet to reveal it. With the
technology we have now, we simply cannot see anything there. Plans are in the
works for bigger and better detection methods, but for now, the area known as
Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-Star) seems to be a great big empty
space of nothingness that somehow manages to make some stars orbit around it at
mind-blowing speeds of over 3,000 miles a second.
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| CREDIT: Alain R. | Wikimedia Commons |
Astronomers know that something
has to be there. Analysis shows that something packing more than 4 million
times the mass of our own sun is there, yet it still cannot be seen. It does
emit some radio waves, but aside from that, there is not much else to go on.
Much research remains to be done to know for sure about this monster at the
center of the Milky Way. One thing is certain: whatever it is, it is proving to
be one great big mathematical migraine.
Read more from SPACE.com.
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