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S62 (star)
S62 is a star in the cluster surrounding Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. S62 orbits Sgr A* faster than any other star known as at August 2019. With an orbital period of only 9.9 years, it beats by a substantial margin the previous record holder, the star S55, which circles Sgr A* in 12.8 years. In addition, S62 has a highly eccentric orbit which makes it pass very close to Sgr A*, only , less than the distance between Uranus and the Sun. The star therefore passes only about 215 times the Schwarzschild radius The Schwarzschild radius or the gravitational radius is a physical parameter in the Schwarzschild solution to Einstein's field equations that corresponds to the radius defining the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. It is a characteristic ... of Sgr A* (the Schwarzschild radius of Sgr A* is approximately 0.082 AU, or 12 million km). It is closer to Sgr A* than the previous record, arou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sagittarius (constellation)
Sagittarius is one of the constellations of the zodiac and is located in the Southern celestial hemisphere. It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. Its old astronomical symbol is (♐︎). Its name is Latin for "archer". Sagittarius is commonly represented as a centaur pulling back a bow. It lies between Scorpius and Ophiuchus to the west and Capricornus and Microscopium to the east. The center of the Milky Way lies in the westernmost part of Sagittarius (see Sagittarius A). Visualizations As seen from the northern hemisphere, the constellation's brighter stars form an easily recognizable asterism known as "the Teapot". The stars δ Sgr (Kaus Media), ε Sgr (Kaus Australis), ζ Sgr (Ascella), and φ Sgr form the body of the pot; λ Sgr (Kaus Borealis) is the point of the lid; γ2 Sgr (Alnasl) is the tip of the spout; and σ Sgr (Nunki) and τ Sgr the handle. These same sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star
A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sky, night, but their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed stars, fixed points of light. The most prominent stars have been categorised into constellations and asterism (astronomy), asterisms, and many of the brightest stars have proper names. Astronomers have assembled star catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardized stellar designations. The observable universe contains an estimated to stars. Only about 4,000 of these stars are visible to the naked eye, all within the Milky Way galaxy. A star's life star formation, begins with the gravitational collapse of a gaseous nebula of material composed primarily of hydrogen, along with helium and trace amounts of heavier elements. Its stellar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sagittarius A* Cluster
The Sagittarius A* cluster is the cluster of stars in close orbit around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way (in the Galactic Center). The individual stars are often listed as "S-stars", but their names and IDs are not formalized, and stars can have different numbers in different catalogues. One of the most studied stars is S2, a relatively bright star that also passes close by Sgr A*. , S4714 is the current record holder of closest approach to Sagittarius A*, at about , almost as close as Saturn gets to the Sun, traveling at about 8% of the speed of light. These figures given are approximate, the formal uncertainties being and . Its orbital period is 12 years, but an extreme eccentricity of 0.985 gives it the close approach and high velocity. List of stars The inferred orbits of stars around supermassive black hole candidate Sagittarius A* at the Milky Way's center are according to Gillessen et al. 2017, with the exception of S2 w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sagittarius A*
Sagittarius A* ( ), abbreviated Sgr A* ( ), is the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center of the Milky Way. It is located near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, about 5.6° south of the ecliptic, visually close to the Butterfly Cluster (M6) and Lambda Scorpii. The object is a bright and very compact astronomical radio source. The name Sagittarius A* follows from historical reasons. In 1954, John D. Kraus, Hsien-Ching Ko, and Sean Matt listed the radio sources they identified with the Ohio State University radio telescope at 250 MHz. The sources were arranged by constellation and the letter assigned to them was arbitrary, with A denoting the brightest radio source within the constellation. The asterisk is because its discovery was considered "exciting", in parallel with the nomenclature for excited state atoms which are denoted with an asterisk (e.g. the excited state of Helium would be He*). The asterisk was assigned in 1982 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supermassive Black Hole
A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical objects that have undergone gravitational collapse, leaving behind spheroidal regions of space from which nothing can escape, not even light. Observational evidence indicates that almost every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its Central massive object, center. For example, the Milky Way has a Galactic Center#Supermassive black hole, supermassive black hole in its Galactic Center, corresponding to the Astronomical radio source, radio source Sagittarius A*. Accretion (astrophysics), Accretion of Interstellar medium, interstellar gas onto supermassive black holes is the process responsible for powering Active galactic nucleus, active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and quasars. Two supermassive black holes have been directly imaged by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Center Of The Milky Way
The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center, the barycenter, of the Milky Way galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact radio source which is almost exactly at the galactic rotational center. The Galactic Center is approximately away from Earth in the direction of the constellations Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, and Scorpius, where the Milky Way appears brightest, visually close to the Butterfly Cluster (M6) or the star Shaula, south to the Pipe Nebula. There are around 10 million stars within one parsec of the Galactic Center, dominated by red giants, with a significant population of massive supergiants and Wolf–Rayet stars from star formation in the region around 1 million years ago. The core stars are a small part within the much wider galactic bulge. Discovery Because of interstellar dust along the line of sight, the Galactic Center cannot be s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orbital Period
The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets, exoplanets orbiting other stars, or binary stars. For celestial objects in general, the sidereal period ( sidereal year) is referred to by the orbital period, determined by a 360° revolution of one body around its primary, e.g. Earth around the Sun, relative to the fixed stars projected in the sky. Orbital periods can be defined in several ways. The tropical period is more particularly about the position of the parent star. It is the basis for the solar year, and respectively the calendar year. The synodic period incorporates not only the orbital relation to the parent star, but also to other celestial objects, making it not a mere different approach to the orbit of an object around its parent, but a period of orbital relations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
S55 (star)
S55 (also known as S0–102) is a star that is located very close to the centre of the Milky Way, near the radio source Sagittarius A*, orbiting it with an orbital period of 12.8 years. Until 2019, when the star S62 became the new record holder, it was the star with the shortest known period orbiting the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. This beat the record of 16 years previously set by S2. The star was identified by a University of California, Los Angeles team headed by Andrea M. Ghez. At its periapsis, its speed reaches 1.7% of the speed of light. At that point it is 246 astronomical units (34 light hours, 36.7 billion km) from the centre, while the black hole radius is only a small fraction of that size (the Schwarzschild radius is about ). It passed that point in 2009 and will be there again in 2022. Its position in the sky has been monitored from 2000 to 2012 using the W. M. Keck telescope and from 2002 to 2016 with the VLT. One complete orbit has been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orbital Eccentricity
In astrodynamics, the orbital eccentricity of an astronomical object is a dimensionless parameter that determines the amount by which its orbit around another body deviates from a perfect circle. A value of 0 is a circular orbit, values between 0 and 1 form an elliptic orbit, 1 is a parabolic escape orbit (or capture orbit), and greater than 1 is a hyperbola. The term derives its name from the parameters of conic sections, as every Kepler orbit is a conic section. It is normally used for the isolated two-body problem, but extensions exist for objects following a rosette orbit through the Galaxy. Definition In a two-body problem with inverse-square-law force, every orbit is a Kepler orbit. The eccentricity of this Kepler orbit is a non-negative number that defines its shape. The eccentricity may take the following values: * circular orbit: ''e'' = 0 * elliptic orbit: 0 < ''e'' < 1 * [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schwarzschild Radius
The Schwarzschild radius or the gravitational radius is a physical parameter in the Schwarzschild solution to Einstein's field equations that corresponds to the radius defining the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. It is a characteristic radius associated with any quantity of mass. The Schwarzschild radius was named after the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, who calculated this exact solution for the theory of general relativity in 1916. The Schwarzschild radius is given as r_\text = \frac , where ''G'' is the gravitational constant, ''M'' is the object mass, and ''c'' is the speed of light. History In 1916, Karl Schwarzschild obtained the exact solution to Einstein's field equations for the gravitational field outside a non-rotating, spherically symmetric body with mass M (see Schwarzschild metric). The solution contained terms of the form 1-/r and \frac , which become singular at r = 0 and r=r_\text respectively. The r_\text has come to be known as the ''Schwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
S2 (star)
S2, also known as S0–2, is a star in Sagittarius A* cluster, the star cluster close to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), orbiting it with a period of 16.0518 years, a semi-major axis of about 970 astronomical unit, au, and a pericenter distance of 17 Light-hour, light hours (18 Metre#SI prefixed forms of metre, Tm or 120 astronomical unit, au) – an orbit with a period only about 30% longer than that of Jupiter around the Sun, but coming no closer than about four times the distance of Neptune from the Sun. The mass when the star first formed is estimated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) to have been approximately . Based on its spectral type (B0V ~ B3V), it probably has a mass of 10 to 15 solar masses. Its changing apparent position has been monitored since 1995 by two groups (at UCLA and at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics) as part of an effort to gather evidence f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Precession
Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body. In an appropriate reference frame it can be defined as a change in the first Euler angle, whereas the third Euler angle defines the rotation itself. In other words, if the axis of rotation of a body is itself rotating about a second axis, that body is said to be precessing about the second axis. A motion in which the second Euler angle changes is called ''nutation''. In physics, there are two types of precession: torque-free and torque-induced. In astronomy, ''precession'' refers to any of several slow changes in an astronomical body's rotational or orbital parameters. An important example is the steady change in the orientation of the axis of rotation of the Earth, known as the precession of the equinoxes. Torque-free Torque-free precession implies that no external moment (torque) is applied to the body. In torque-free precession, the angular momentum is a constant, but the angular velocit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
