Heart of the Milky Way

2002/01/10 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Astrofisika

In this mosaic of images collected by the Chandra telescope we see the center of our galaxy. It shows the distance between 400 and 900 light years and us no, but astronomers have separated hundreds of white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes. Precisely, the central supermassive black hole of the Milky Way is located inside the bright central white dot of the image.

This image brings new views to astronomers to learn how the turbulent center of the galaxy affects the evolution of the entire galaxy. For example, until now it was thought that the temperature of its gas was higher than 100 million degrees Celsius, but they have realized that it is only 10 million degrees. It seems that the gas mentioned extends from the center to the entire galaxy. The ashes of stars that are frequently destroyed in the center, chemically very rich, are dispersed along with the gaseous flow.

The centre of the Milky Way is 26,000 light-years from the earth, close to astronomers. Thanks to this, it seems to be a perfect laboratory to know how the hearts of other galaxies are.

More information in the journal Nature.