Here's (above) a picture of a near-by galaxy that's believed to look like our own. Pretty isn't it? When I was a kid they told us that no one could see the center of our own galaxy, that whatever was there was a mystery. Now all that's changed. Now we know that a monster black hole lies at the center, and we even have pictures of the area surrounding it.
And here (above) it is, the center of the galaxy. The space you see isn't very wide, there's just a lot of stars packed into it. These stars are highly energetic. They're born, live and die in an amazingly short time. They're constantly colliding and eating each other up.
If you want to see the very, very center then here (above) it is, where the arrows are pointing on the picture on the right. The stars closest to the center of the picture are erratically orbiting the black hole at a velocity of three million miles an hour. The size of the hole? It contains two million solar mases and it's the size of a grain of dust! Here's (below) a link to an animated film showing the path of the stars closest to the hole:
Here's (above) the center of the Andromeda galaxy where a black hole is in evidence which is even more powerful than our own. I know what you're thinking it looks like.
Keep in mind that the photos are colorized by Astronomers based on their best estimations. The images from radio telescopes are in black and white.
ReplyDeleteSteve, it's not that simple. Check this out:
ReplyDeletehttp://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/
They're more like high dynamic range images, photographed through different filters to get each channel information separately.
Eddie! Isn't outer-space the coolest thing!!!!! I get all fired up whenever I start thinking about it!
ReplyDeleteI just bought some fantastic kid's books about space exploration and related topics, that were printed in the early sixties. I love how optomistic they are, with all their talk of orbiting star bases and domed colonies on the moon and mars.
These images look like Jack Kirby panels from mid-late '60s Fantastic Four comics.
ReplyDeleteCool post Eddie! Did you know that the Milky Way is on a collision course with Andromeda? In about four billion years our galaxies will have merged.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I see pictures of the universe I'm awestruck and also reminded how insignificant our own planet is in the large scheme of things.
Hey Eddie. There is a tv show called "The Universe." Its on the History channel. Im sure you would enjoy it. Its great!
ReplyDelete"I know what you're thinking it looks like."
ReplyDeleteNo, what? A breast? Seriously, I can't discern anything, certainly anything even vaguely sexual. *shrugs*
If you think it's cervix-like or something like that(that's usually the fallback for "hole" shapes/pictures/etc.), boy, it doesn't resemble any in existence, not even close. So-what were you thinking we were thinking?
"I know what you're thinking it looks like."
ReplyDeleteNo, what? A breast? Seriously, I can't discern anything, certainly anything even vaguely sexual. *shrugs*
If you think it's cervix-like or something like that(that's usually the fallback for "hole" shapes/pictures/etc.), boy, it doesn't resemble any in existence, not even close. So-what were you thinking we were thinking?
Whoops-doubled-down. Sorry about that, chief!
ReplyDeletePuzzled: It looked to me like a big old dog anus. Steve's chiwhuahua (spelled right?)farted in my face last week so I'm an expert on the subject.
ReplyDeleteRyan: I saw half an hour of the moon episode of the new series and was disappointed. They wasted a lot of time talking about how crime and craziness are effected by the full moon.
The information I put up came from another series I like better, "Unfolding Universe,"
HAHAHA, that bottom picture is screaming for a goatse photoshop job!
ReplyDeleteOld meme!
Here are some cool Hubble pictures:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.aol.com/story/_a/nasa-snaps-images-of-death-star-galaxy/20071217172309990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Thinking about the vastness of the universe makes me queasy.
I think that view of Andromeda looks like a donut. It's really fantastic, as are all of these photos.
ReplyDeleteThat's sort of how I imagine the stars around a quasar; to be in the shape of a donut as they spiral down into the quasar. Eventually I'd think they would just become a glowing halo of hot gas right before finally slipping past the event horizon.
So how big is the event horizon on the Milky Way's quasar, anyway? Does anyone know?