Supermassive Black Hole - Supermassive Black Hole Hypothesis

Supermassive Black Hole Hypothesis

Astronomers are confident that our own Milky Way galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center, 26,000 light-years from the Solar System, in a region called Sagittarius A* because:

  • The star S2 follows an elliptical orbit with a period of 15.2 years and a pericenter (closest distance) of 17 light hours (1.8×1013 m or 120 AU) from the center of the central object.
  • From the motion of star S2, the object's mass can be estimated as 4.1 million solar masses.
  • The radius of the central object must be significantly less than 17 light hours, because otherwise, S2 would either collide with it or be ripped apart by tidal forces. In fact, recent observations indicate that the radius is no more than 6.25 light-hours, about the diameter of Uranus' orbit.
  • Only a black hole is dense enough to contain 4.1 million solar masses in this volume of space.

The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and UCLA Galactic Center Group have provided the strongest evidence to date that Sagittarius A* is the site of a supermassive black hole, based on data from the ESO and the Keck telescope. Our galactic central black hole is calculated to have a mass of approximately 4.1 million solar masses, or about 8.2 × 1036 kg.

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