Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T15:46:49.830Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - The Supermassive Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2022

Giuseppe Bertin
Affiliation:
Università degli Studi di Milano
Get access

Summary

The tracking of the orbit of a star around SgrA* is one of the most beautiful achievements of astronomy. It is the focus of this chapter. This measurement has led to the most convincing evidence for the existence of a supermassive black hole and to an accurate measurement of its mass. In addition, this is also a simple example of the general dynamical paradigm used to determine whether a system contains some form of invisible matter coexisting with the visible matter. Here, the invisible matter (a black hole) has nothing to do with the concept of dark matter as is commonly envisaged in modern astrophysics. After a section on the dynamical paradigm that leads to declare a discrepancy between mass present and visible mass, some observations are recalled that for decades have suggested that our Galaxy should host a central supermassive black hole. Then the main characteristics of the more recent study of star orbits close to the source SgrA* are described, with additional comments on the detection of supermassive central black holes in other galaxies. The final dynamical section is devoted to some general concepts about orbits; it also includes a short description of quasi-circular star orbits in spherical or axisymmetric time-independent potentials.

Type
Chapter
Information
Visible and Dark Matter in the Universe
A Short Primer on Astrophysical Dynamics
, pp. 106 - 118
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×