Questions tagged [sagittarius-a]

Questions about Sagittarius A*, abbreviated Sgr A*, the "bright and very compact astronomical radio source at the center of the Milky Way" galaxy, believed to be the result of a supermassive black hole.

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S0-2 (S2) Diameter/Radius

I'm a student, I am doing an investigation about S0-2. My idea was to take the wavelength that emanates from the star. When I saw the data from Science magazine I found a problem that was that the ...
Nicolás Vallejos's user avatar
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How do we get -0.4 mJy/beam in the the 1.28 GHz MeerKAT Galactic Center Mosaic?

Dr. Becky's Feb. 11, 2022 video Move over JWST! 5 new telescopes to get excited for makes a quick mention of this image produced by the Meerkat array and published in Heywood et al. 2022 The 1.28 GHz ...
uhoh's user avatar
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Did the Grus star get expelled from the Milky way because it was accelerated by the Sagittarius A black hole?

On Wikipedia there is an article that says a star may have been expelled from the Milky Way because it interacted with Sagittarius A. Sagittarius A* from Wikipedia: In July 2019, astronomers reported ...
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What is the rotational speed of Sagittarius A*?

Sagittarius A* is the Milky Way's own supermassive black hole. Up till recently, I used to think that Sagittarius A* was a static black hole, i.e. It had no rotational speed at all. But after doing a ...
Furious Arcturus's user avatar
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Kepler ellipse orbit fit issues

I am helping my high schooler with a research paper that uses PyAstronomy to fit the orbit of stars around Sag A. It isn't working because the angles (parameters Omega, omega, and i) seem to have a ...
Emmy's user avatar
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Is this image of Sgr A* correctly labelled?

This BBC article contains this "schematic description" of the EHT Sgr A* image: The source is described only as "EHT Collaboration" and I haven't been able to find the original ...
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Is the appearance of accretion disks of M87 and Sgr A* in EHT image, related to the nucleus being active or non-active?

I'm a newbie in this field so forgive me if I'm considering things wrong. As much as I can see, the newly published image of the Sgr A* looks pretty much the same as M87 released years ago. I'm ...
Tirdad Sadri Nejad's user avatar
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Does the newly found orientation of Sgr A* match the theory that the Fermi bubbles might have been caused by jets?

The EHT just announced their great findings about Sgr A*, amongst other cool things they found that we look towards the black hole face on which means that if there is a jet it approximately looks ...
astronerd's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
808 views

Why is Sgr A* moving so much?

This answer mentions that the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy is constantly moving. Sagittarius A Star is 1000 times faster and smaller. Its like a toddler who is moving ...
usernumber's user avatar
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Why hasn't the EHT taken an image of Sgr A*? [duplicate]

The Event Horizon Telescope or EHT took an image or the black hole at the center of M87 in 2019, and in 2021 it measured the polarization of the light from M87*. Right after the first image of M87* ...
usernumber's user avatar
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Could stars like S2 near the galaxy's center have planets in a stable orbit?

I read about one of the stars orbiting Sagittarius A* and according to Wikipedia, it reaches a maximum speed of 0.03c during its orbit. Would this (or any other factor) make it impossible for a planet ...
user985366's user avatar
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What does "synchrotron emission from relativistic electrons in equipartition with a ∼1.5 mG magnetic field" mean?

I've heard of the equipartition theorem in the context of thermodynamics. But I don't understand how either "synchrotron emission" or "relativistic electrons" can be in "...
uhoh's user avatar
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Can the lensing effect of Sagittarius A* be used to image the stars diametrically opposite to the sun?

The sun can magnify an image of a source 100 ly away nearly 100 billion times, if the ring is captured from the nearest focal point (550AU). According to Christian Ready of Launch Pad Astronomy, we ...
Akash Ghoshal's user avatar
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Forms of stellar orbits around the galactic center

Do all stars in orbit around Sagittarius A have approximately circular orbits or are there stars that orbit the Milky Way center very elliptically, like being in the Milky Way's outer rim at apoapsis ...
John's user avatar
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How will they know when to start taking the picture of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way?

@csm's answer to Why not take a picture of a closer black hole? points out that it's necessary for the supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy to be actively feeding for it to generate a ...
uhoh's user avatar
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How do they know the newly-spotted gas near the center of our galaxy is molecular without knowing what gas it is?

Phys.org's Mystery gas discovered near center of Milky Way links to Teodoro et al 2020 in Nature Cold gas in the Milky Way’s nuclear wind who's abstract is shown below. Question: My reading of the ...
uhoh's user avatar
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Why does the closest approach of star S2 to Sgr A* not appear to be near the focus of its elliptical orbit?

Phys.org's Very Large Telescope sees star dance around supermassive black hole, proves Einstein right links to several ESO videos, including The star S2 makes a close approach to the black hole at the ...
uhoh's user avatar
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How can a star be "thrown out of the Milky Way" by Sagittarius A*?

A recent publication reports that a hypervelocity star on course to leave the galaxy was found, likely accelerated by the black hole at the center of the Milky Way in a process predicted by Jack G. ...
Peter - Reinstate Monica's user avatar
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How can I obtain raw observation data of stars surrounding Sgr A*?

Are there any publicly available telescope that offers the sensitivity to observe the stars surrounding Sgr A*? If not, is there any raw data available that I could download?
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How can I observe Sgr A* with itelescope.net

I've been experimenting with itelescope.net and tried to observe Sgr A*. I was wondering if there are any suggestions as to how I can best observe the surrounding stars?
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How did they estimate the mass of Sgr A*'s companion G2 without knowing what it was?

Gizmodo.com's Astronomers Spot Unprecedented Flashes From Our Galaxy's Black Hole mentions Sgr A*'s companion gas cloud G2. That Wikipedia article says: First noticed as something unusual in ...
uhoh's user avatar
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How did they measure the distance to the center of our galaxy to 0.3% accuracy?

The abstract of A geometric distance measurement to the Galactic center black hole with 0.3% uncertainty (Open Access) says: We present a 0.16% precise and 0.27% accurate determination of R₀, the ...
uhoh's user avatar
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How feasible is it that we could see the Central Black Hole Sgr A* occlude one of it's closely orbiting stars?

I'm thinking about the recent famous photo of a black hole, some months ago. It got me wondering if there isn't a way to more easily make a direct observation of these. We detect exoplanets in part ...
Stilez's user avatar
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Why didn't the Event Horizon Telescope team mention Sagittarius A*?

At the press conference this morning, the Event Horizon Telescope team didn't say much about Sagittarius A*, which was the target many of us have been waiting for. Is there any explanation anywhere ...
White Prime's user avatar
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How did they make a video of the center of the galaxy, and what is it exactly that's flashing there?

The ESA video ESOcast 173: First Successful Test of Einstein’s General Relativity Near Supermassive Black Hole includes a clip of images of stars at the center of our galaxy orbiting around SgrA*, a ...
uhoh's user avatar
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6 votes
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Is there any update on the Availability of Event Horizon Telescope Images?

There has been no news on the obvious public channels from the EHT project since last (Northern) summer. Does anyone have more information on when any results from the April 2017 run might be released?...
Steve Linton's user avatar
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What is it exactly about these flares of infrared light from Sgr A* that "confirms" it is a supermassive black hole?

CNET.com's SCI-TECH Scientists confirm a 'supermassive black hole' at the heart of our galaxy It's "mind-boggling", they say. This links to Astronomy.com's Scientists finally confirm the Milky Way ...
uhoh's user avatar
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Do we know at which angle the Event Horizon Telescope will look at the accretion disk of Sagittarius A*?

Do we know at which angle the Event Horizon Telescope will look at the accretion disk of Sagittarius A*? Additionally, would it matter if we are exactly in the plane with the accretion disk, i.e. ...
user3095304's user avatar
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1 answer
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What if a Black Hole passed through an Irregular type galaxy?

So, most of you all are probably (well, why wouldn't you be) familiar with The Magellanic Clouds, and hour they are Irregular type galaxies. You should also be aware that they both orbit the Milky Way,...
Commander KJ's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
232 views

Error propagation methods for orbit parameters

Recently I've encountered an article in our local astronomical popularization magazine. It is about a well known task of Sgr A*-black hole's mass estimation. The article is written as a step by step ...
Vladimir Belyaev's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
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Nature and mechanism of the short-term variability in radio strength of Sgr A*?

The Phys.org article Cosmic filament probes our galaxy's giant black hole links to A Nonthermal Radio Filament Connected to the Galactic Black Hole? which discusses (among other things) the importance ...
uhoh's user avatar
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7 votes
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At what wavelengths can black hole Sagittarius A* be observed from Earth?

The supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way is blocked by dust and gas clouds as seen from where we are. Which wavelengths are blocked and which are most undisturbed for observation of ...
LocalFluff's user avatar
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5 votes
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How does the Event Horizon Telescope implement the interferometry?

The BBC article Event Horizon Telescope ready to image black hole describes the Event Horizon Telescope, a coordinated observing technique with several radio telescope arrays across the globe forming ...
uhoh's user avatar
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