Wow. A 3.6 million solar mass black hole is really something to marvel at, but look at the stars swarming around it! Looks like a busy, chaotic place.
There are additional animations, movies, images, and plots created by the UCLA Galactic Center Group.
You can click the above thumbnail for a shortcut directly to their page of additional visual aids, including larger versions of the thumbnail, which was created by Prof. Andrea Ghez and her research team at UCLA and are from data sets obtained with the W.M. Keck telescopes.
With all that movement I'm surprised we aren't see any stellar collisions. You'd think we'd be detecting plenty of gravity waves from that area.
Well, we might indeed be! :-)
Interestingly there is a thingy called bremsstrahlung meaning 'braking radiation', a term originally applied to the emission of photons. When fast electrons swing around the nucleus of a heavy metal atom they spray X-rays during the turn. It is the standard method for producing X-rays.
The term also applies as gravitational bremsstrahlung by a similiar mechanism. So our black hole here at the galactic nucleus would be producing it in spades with those close encounters! For us to detect it here, the geometry would have to be right but....
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) Also if a star comes in pretty well spherically shaped, it's going to leave as quite a mess. This is due to tidal effects. Because the black hole's gravity is so strong there is going to be a substantial difference in the field magnitude between various parts over the volume of the star - so they will part company a fair bit ( follow separate paths/orbits ) - as the star is only gaseous with no cohesion ( apart from gravity ) between said parts.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
CHART
In the chart above, it looks like SO-16 and SO-2 have the fastest periods, but are still a long way off (time-wise) from a merger (although it looks like it wouldn't take much to hasten SO-16's demise). My question is, does the type of star have an effect on the GW signal? In other words, does it matter if SO-16 is a neutron star, as opposed to, say, a main-sequence star? (Don't all neutron stars have less mass than all main-sequence stars?)
(edit) the chart was larger than I thought, please click the link...
In the chart above, it looks like SO-16 and SO-2 have the fastest periods,
For the most part the orbits can be viewed as Newtonian/Keplerian, so ( T = period, ~ = goes like, R = semi-major axis ( 'radius' ), ^ = exponent ):
T ~ R^(3/2)
giving by eye : SO2 neutrons ) to create a neutron star. Interestingly neutron stars are largely, but not completely neutrons. The surface, the crust, and the core can be in different physical states hence yielding various properties with depth.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Galactic Center Research
)
Wow. A 3.6 million solar mass black hole is really something to marvel at, but look at the stars swarming around it! Looks like a busy, chaotic place.
There are additional animations, movies, images, and plots created by the UCLA Galactic Center Group.
You can click the above thumbnail for a shortcut directly to their page of additional visual aids, including larger versions of the thumbnail, which was created by Prof. Andrea Ghez and her research team at UCLA and are from data sets obtained with the W.M. Keck telescopes.
Oh, wow! Top find Misfit
)
Oh, wow!
Top find Misfit :-)
Did ya see that sucker coming in from the top left?
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
RE: Oh, wow! Top find
)
With all that movement I'm surprised we aren't see any stellar collisions. You'd think we'd be detecting plenty of gravity waves from that area.
me-[at]-rescam.org
RE: With all that movement
)
Well, we might indeed be! :-)
Interestingly there is a thingy called bremsstrahlung meaning 'braking radiation', a term originally applied to the emission of photons. When fast electrons swing around the nucleus of a heavy metal atom they spray X-rays during the turn. It is the standard method for producing X-rays.
The term also applies as gravitational bremsstrahlung by a similiar mechanism. So our black hole here at the galactic nucleus would be producing it in spades with those close encounters! For us to detect it here, the geometry would have to be right but....
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) Also if a star comes in pretty well spherically shaped, it's going to leave as quite a mess. This is due to tidal effects. Because the black hole's gravity is so strong there is going to be a substantial difference in the field magnitude between various parts over the volume of the star - so they will part company a fair bit ( follow separate paths/orbits ) - as the star is only gaseous with no cohesion ( apart from gravity ) between said parts.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
CHART In the chart above, it
)
CHART
In the chart above, it looks like SO-16 and SO-2 have the fastest periods, but are still a long way off (time-wise) from a merger (although it looks like it wouldn't take much to hasten SO-16's demise). My question is, does the type of star have an effect on the GW signal? In other words, does it matter if SO-16 is a neutron star, as opposed to, say, a main-sequence star? (Don't all neutron stars have less mass than all main-sequence stars?)
(edit) the chart was larger than I thought, please click the link...
RE: CHART I now have a
)
I now have a new desktop picture!
For the most part the orbits can be viewed as Newtonian/Keplerian, so ( T = period, ~ = goes like, R = semi-major axis ( 'radius' ), ^ = exponent ):
T ~ R^(3/2)
giving by eye : SO2 neutrons ) to create a neutron star. Interestingly neutron stars are largely, but not completely neutrons. The surface, the crust, and the core can be in different physical states hence yielding various properties with depth.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal