Nucleus of the Milky Way galaxy

[DJVege]

Hi guys,

Another question mainly for knowledge purposes.

Is it possible to see the nucleus of our galaxy with a telescope? :shrug:

[erick]

Depends where you are sitting with your telescope? I presume you mean from on the earth? :D

What I read suggests there is too much stuff in the way. :sadeyes:

But, to be pedantic, I understand that it is believed that the "centre" of our galaxy contains a super-massive black hole. I believe that you cannot see a black hole, only the effects of it on its neighbourhood?

[mib]

As for actually seeing the centre of our galaxy maybe not, for the reasons given previously. That said if you want to look toward the centre then direction is in the constellation of Sagittarius. It is where the Milky Way appears brightest.

Clear Skies

[DJVege]

Thanks guys.

I just read up on the "Galactic centre" of our galaxy, and they reckon it's 24,800LY away. Far out! So, whatever we see (LOL, or don't see) happened 24,800 years ago.

Hmm..that's weird. So, if the centre of our galaxy is that far away, that means that galaxy they recently found that could produce a planet like earth is much closer, at 490LY away. This is some interesting and mind boggling stuff! :screwy::lol:

[erick]

It's also a question of which "telescope". Get yourself a radio telescope and you might detect Sagittarius A* - probably as close to the central black hole as you can get?

[astro_south]

Wouldn't it be a star (not a galaxy) that could harbor a planet like earth?

I do find the distances to mind boggling though :thumbsup: - and the thought there is is a whole lot of nothing in between!

We can point out the centre of our galaxy up at Ron's on Saturday night DJ.

[Lee]

It can't be a galaxy 490LY away - the Milky Way is 100,000LY across or so - the nearest galaxy to ours (that isn't a satellite of ours either) according to wikipedia is Leo II at 680,000LY away.
It must have been a star - I'm sure there would be hundreds of stars (if not more) within the Milky Way that harbour hospitable or potentially hospitable planets....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_galaxies

[mib]

Interestingly, I saw a short video at the RAS meeting last night showing the recent discovery of two galaxies which are currently colliding with the Milky Way. Further, the center of one of these two galaxies is closer to us than the center of the Milky Way! So, what DJVerge has discovered about the planet formation may be true.:shrug:

[DJVege]

Ok. Click the link below for some "nearest galaxy" reading.

http://astro.u-strasbg.fr/images_ri/canm-e.html

And I was incorrect before. It's not a galaxy, just an earth like planet forming. You can read about it below:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22529006-1702,00.html?from=mostpop