12 October 2011
This is an infrared image, revealing the core of the Milky Way Galaxy, believed to harbor a mighty black hole. It is a mosaic of images, acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope, a sophisticated observatory in Earth orbit.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and Q.D. Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) malting
Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is a large barred spiral galaxy, spanning about 100,000 light years across. It consists of over 200 billion stars. The Sun is located approximately 27,000 light years from the galactic center, and lasts about 200 million to orbit the Galaxy once. Intriguingly, astronomers have gathered strong evidence that a giant black hole, termed a supermassive black hole, resides in the Milky Way’s center. The mass of this monstrous black hole is estimated to be over 4 million times the mass of the Sun.
Since the Solar System is located within the disk of the Galaxy, we can view the Galaxy, from dark sites, away from city lights, as a band of faint light, stretching across the night sky. The Galaxy’s core, however, cannot be observed in visual light, due to intervening clouds of cosmic dust. Interestingly, infrared light can penetrate this obscuring dust, and unveil hidden secrets of the heart of our Galaxy.
NASA recently published a magnificent infrared image of the galactic core, regarded as the most detailed picture of this mysterious tumultuous region. The image shows a rich population of bright and massive stars, and hot gas clouds. It has been produced by composing images of the galactic core, acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), a sophisticated observatory in Earth orbit.
The Milky Way as it appears in the sky
To the unaided eye, the Milky Way resembles a river of faint light, encircling the entire sky. Clouds of cosmic dust hide the galactic center from view, just right of image’s center.
Credit: ESO/S. Brunier
The Milky Way over the Very Large Telescope (VLT)
This gorgeous photo shows the Milky Way, arching over one of the four giant telescopes of the Very Large Telescope Observatory, located in Paranal, Chile. A bright laser beam, emitted by one of the VLT telescopes, points to the position of the Milky Way’s center.
Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky
Aymen Mohamed Ibrahem
Senior Astronomy Specialist