Images of gas cloud being ripped apart by the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way
eso_eso1332a July 17th, 2013
Credit: ESO/S. Gillessen
New observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope show for the first time a gas cloud being ripped apart by the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy. Shown here are VLT observations from 2006, 2010 and 2013, coloured blue, green and red respectively. Due to its distance, and the fact that we see the orbit at a steep angle as the cloud falls towards the black hole, only the position, not the shape, of the cloud can be discerned in this image. The stretching of the cloud is seen in observations of its velocity, which allow astronomers to work out where on its orbit the different parts of the cloud are now located.
Provider: European Southern Observatory
Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1332a/
Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
-
View Options
-
Download Options
-
Full Size Image
(1028 x 1029)
Source TIFF (1.25 MB)
- Additional Sizes (JPG)
- 319 x 320 (23.5 KB)
- 1023 x 1024 (78.7 KB)
- 499 x 500 (33 KB)
- 1278 x 1280 (108 KB)
Image Details
Color Mapping
- ID
- eso1332a
- Subject Category
- B.5.4.6
- Subject Name
- Milky Way, Milky Way Galactic Centre, Sgr A*
- Credits
- ESO/S. Gillessen
- Release Date
- 2013-07-17T12:00:00
- Lightyears
- Redshift
- Reference Url
- https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1332a/
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Distance Notes
- Facility
- Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope
- Instrument
- SINFONI, SINFONI, SINFONI, SINFONI
- Color Assignment
- Grayscale, Red, Green, Blue
- Band
- Infrared, Infrared, Infrared, Infrared
- Bandpass
- -, Bracket Gamma, Bracket Gamma, Bracket Gamma
- Central Wavelength
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- Equinox
- Reference Value
- Reference Dimension
- 1028.0, 1029.0
- Reference Pixel
- Scale
- Rotation
- Coordinate System Projection:
- Quality
- FITS Header
- Notes
- Creator (Curator)
- European Southern Observatory
- URL
- http://www.eso.org/
- Name
- Telephone
- Address
- Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
- City
- Garching bei München
- State/Province
- Postal Code
- D-85748
- Country
- Germany
- Rights
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
- Publisher
- European Southern Observatory
- Publisher ID
- eso
- Resource ID
- eso1332a
- Resource URL
- https://www.eso.org/public/archives/images/original/eso1332a.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2013-07-16T11:07:42+02:00
- Metadata Version
- 1.1
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
