From the BBC News website:
There is a giant black hole at the centre of our galaxy, a study has confirmed.
German astronomers tracked the movement of 28 stars circling the centre of the Milky Way, using the European Southern Observatory in Chile.
The black hole is four million times heavier than our Sun, according to the paper in The Astrophysical Journal.
You can read more on the BBC site (I cant find any other links about it yet)
Just thought I would highlight an excellent post made on the View from the Edge blog, titled “feeling insignificant yet?”
It begins with a quote from Douglas Adams so you know it is probably going to be good 🙂 , and follows up with this:
Carl Sagan used to say the universe contained “billions and billions of stars†and also that if we are the only intelligent life in the universe, then what a ‘tremendous waste of space.†The following pictures are one of the best visual depictions of that I have ever seen, and it shows pretty clearly just how insignificant this little blue orb actually is.
If you have ever wondered how big the Earth is in relation to other planets or stars – check it out. Even if you haven’t check it out anyway 🙂
[tags]Space, stars, planets, Douglas Adams, Carl Sagan, Science, Astronomy, Cosmology, Universe, Scale[/tags]