Evidence for Milky Way's Long-Theorized Stellar Graveyard Found

[Minstrel Boy]

Evidence for Milky Way's Long-Theorized Stellar Graveyard Found

Scientific American, Jan 11

A supermassive black hole, known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), resides at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Findings presented yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego, Calif., indicate that it, in turn, could be surrounded by a swarm of smaller black holes that have accumulated over billions of years. The results suggest that the smaller black holes will eventually fall into the supermassive black hole, increasing its size and helping astronomers better understand how such black holes grow.

Michael Muno of the University of California at Los Angeles and his colleagues analyzed data collected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory as the instrument monitored the region around Sgr A*. The team sifted through data from all the x-ray sources situated within 70 light-years of Sgr A*, searching for those that had characteristics of black holes and neutron stars in binary systems and found four sources within just three light-years of the central black hole. Initial models had suggested there was less than a one in five chance that even one such binary would be so close to Sgr A*. "The observed high concentration of these sources implies that a huge number of black holes and neutron stars have gathered in the center of the galaxy," Muno says. Indeed, the team estimates that up to 10,000 or more stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars could be swarming around Sgr A*.

The findings are the first evidence to date of a dense stellar graveyard that has been theorized for years and indicate that the black holes and neutron stars will slowly be swallowed up by Sgr A* at a rate of about one every million years, leaving the central supermassive black hole about 3 percent more massive in a few billion years. A detailed report describing the results has been submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letters.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=0009DDD5-FB24-11E2-BB2483414B7F0000

But I thought it had been established, in Star Trek V, that the galactic centre was home to Sybok, the laughing Vulcan?

[pmbryant]

1. Expect a lot of astronomy "news" this week

Due to the annual AAS meeting.

--Peter

[ewagner]

2. Yep, I expect lots of papers

to be presented and then show up in the news.....

Funny thing though...the AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY Annual Convention is also in San Diego this week and there doesn't appear to be a lot of news coming out of there........

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. This doesn't have anything to do with black holes.... but it may have

something to do with going to them or near them....


http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/
NASA supported the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project from 1996-2002 to seek the ultimate breakthroughs in space transportation: (1) propulsion that requires no propellant mass, (2) propulsion that attains the maximum transit speeds physically possible, and (3) breakthrough methods of energy production to power such devices. Topics of interest include experiments and theories regarding the coupling of gravity and electromagnetism, the quantum vacuum, hyper fast travel, and super luminal quantum effects. Because the propulsion goals are presumably far from fruition, a special emphasis is to identify affordable, near-term, and credible research that could make measurable progress toward these propulsion goals.

This web site describes the methods and activities of the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project. For an introduction about the challenges of interstellar travel and some of the emerging concepts, please visit our "Warp Drive- When?" site.

[jmcgowanjm]

4. Sound waves 57 octaves lower than middle-C

A piano has 7.

The "note" is the deepest ever detected from any object in
our Universe. The tremendous amounts of energy carried
by these sound waves may solve a longstanding problem
in astrophysics.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/09sep_blackholesounds.htm?list752971

Most Powerful Eruption in the Universe Discovered



One BadassedSOB

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/ms0735/

[jmcgowanjm]

6. The tremendous amounts of energy carried

e=hf

Electromagnetic radiation can indeed interact
with sound waves in materials.

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/Apr2003/1049993204.Ph.r.html

TRANSVERSE WAVES:

Transverse waves are waves in which the particles of the medium through which the waves are traveling vibrate at right angles to the direction of travel of the wave motion.  Eg a wave travelling on a rope, water waves on the surface of a lake, S-waves of an earthquake.

LONGITUDINAL WAVES:
Longitudinal waves are waves in which the particles of the medium vibrate parallel to and anti-parallel to the direction of motion of the waves.  Eg sound waves and P-waves of an earthquake.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~emeryrg/commune.htm

http://www.electrogravity.com/index5.html

[Artemis Bunyon]

7. Wasn't this in the last fifteen minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Seems familiar.

[KansDem]

5. WOW!!! What did the Great Intelligent Designer have in mind...

...when he/she/it created this, I wonder...

[chopper]

8. makes sense

"it, in turn, could be surrounded by a swarm of smaller black holes that have accumulated over billions of years"

many of the stars that form around the middle of the galaxy are very bright and very large, so they run out of fuel fast, and when they go they form a black hole. so i'd figure sag A would be surrounded by stellar black holes.

[BattyDem]

9. Well ...

this can't be true. They never mentioned Adam and Eve once. Besides, something like this would take a lot longer than 7 days. :eyes:


On edit: This is really cool info! Thanks for posting it. :toast:

[Spinzonner]

10. Obviously they're having a meeting

and conspiring to gobble us up.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

11. The black hole is

in the White House planning how to gobble us all up.

[Megahurtz]

12. Yeah, somehow they hijacked a black hole

and brought it to earth!