Seeing the Invisible, 04.05.12

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.

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.

Hungry, Hungry Black Holes 02.10.12

Black Holes have a way of “eating” anything that gets re­motely close to them. In astronomical terms, we are talking about 100 million miles away or less.

It turns out, these pesky over-eating habits seem to be the answer for some questions regarding recent flares from the gigantic black hole at the center of Sgr (Sagittarius) A*. Closer studies seem to reveal that the black hole is surrounded by a cloud of asteroids and other detritus that is continually swept into its path. As it gets close, it gets torn to pieces by the black hole, and this friction makes the pieces heat up and glow, much like a meteor in our atmosphere, NASA says. A flare is produced as an astronomical burp of sorts, and the cycle of destruction continues.

Image credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss.

This is no baby with its first birthday cake, though. Far from it, actually. Needless to say, this monster at the center of our galaxy is getting a lot of attention.

Information credit: NASA

A quasar's lesson in death, 03.02.11

There is a supermassive black hole at the center of Markarian 231, about 600 million light years away, near the constellation Ursa Major, which is giving scientists some clues into the life cycles of black holes. Irony objectified, it turns out that their massive appetites actually starve them out in the end.

Image credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA, artwork by Lynette Cook.

Mrk 231 is under observation by the Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawai’I, and the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Mauna Kea, Hawai’i. The observatory has estimated that the total flow of matter from Mrk 231 is about 400 times the mass of the Sun, and that it puts out this much every year. Such an enormous appetite, however, cannot go on forever, scientists say.


Black holes are a normal find in the center of galaxies; we even have one of our own in the center of the Milky Way. Mrk 231has allowed scientists to glean data that demonstrates how black holes can be choked out. They are calling their findings a “negative feedback loop,” in which the black hole sucks in matter and energy around it, compresses it into an unimaginably fine stream (probably because of magnetic fields), and then spews it back out. The problem, they say, is that it is spitting its food out too far and too fast. “This is really a last gasp of this galaxy;” says Sylvain Veilleux of the University of Maryland, “The black hole is belching its next meal into oblivion!”


In the final, violent stages of merging with another galaxy, it spits out the material it needs faster and farther away than it can be retrieved. Soon, it will be stripped down to its energetic central quasar.


Quasar is actually a shortened term for “quasi-stellar radio source.” This is a bit of a misnomer, however, as some quasars emit very little of a radio signal, if any, at all. They also are some of the brightest and presumably oldest objects in the universe, and are still being extensively studied.


Credit: NASA.

A recent discovery in astronomy challenges knowledge of stars, 08.20.10

You may have read in the news lately about a fairly recent discovery in astronomy that is leaving astronomers questioning what they know about the life cycles and behavior of stars. An astronomer at Thronateeska Heritage Center says not to have worries about a recent discovery in our universe, though. Despite its enormous magnetic field, its safe distance away will cause no foreseeable problems in the near future for Earth.


An odd kind of neutron star called a “magnetar” because of its massive magnetic field is puzzling astronomers at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. It is located in the constellation Ara (the Altar), 16,000 light years away in a star cluster called Westerlund 1. This cluster is 3.5 to 5 million years old and should not have produced a “magnetar” because it is too young. Another problem is that the star that created this “magnetar” was far too large to have done what it did; it should have made a black hole out of its supernova remnant. The magnetic field that this “magnetar” has generated is about one million billion times stronger than that of Earth.


This strange behavior is causing a dilemma for astronomers. Because the giant collapsing star that created the “magnetar” did not behave as it should have, this might rewrite the book on stellar evolution of massive stars.


Discussions on this subject will be open to the public between planetarium shows at the Wetherbee Planetarium this Saturday, August 21^st. Call 229-432-6955 or visit http://heritagecenter.org for planetarium show times.