What is the whole picture of the high-definition map of Galaxy Center?

The Milky Way is a star system in the solar system. We are full of unknowns and curiosity about the Milky Way. Recently, NASA released a high-definition map of the center of the Milky Way, which gave us a deeper understanding of the center of the Milky Way. Then let's use constellation knowledge to share the high-definition map of the center of the Milky Way. What is the panoramic view of the center of the Milky Way galaxy?

High-definition map of Galaxy Center

IT House 65438+1October 1 1 Message Local Time1October 9 10, NASA released the image of the central region of the Milky Way taken by Spitzer infrared space telescope. The center of the Milky Way is very crowded. There is a black hole with a mass four million times that of the sun, surrounded by millions of stars.

The center of the Milky Way is covered with dust and gas clouds, which makes it impossible for many detectors to see the details of the center of the Milky Way through these substances. The infrared camera on Spitzer Space Telescope can penetrate these gas clouds and dust and observe the center of the Milky Way.

The observed images show that the center of the Milky Way is very crowded, including a black hole with a mass of 4 million times that of the sun, surrounded by millions of high-speed rotating stars, and there are strong ultraviolet rays and X-rays in this extreme environment.

After Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA will launch the Weber Space Telescope. The infrared camera on this telescope can show the interior of the Milky Way more clearly.

What is the panorama of the Milky Way?

Every summer and autumn night, if the sky is clear, you can't see the moon, and you are far away from the city lights, that bright band of light will be hung high in the sky, especially brilliant. It extends upward from the northern horizon, over the head and flows to the south for 1000 miles. Its Sagittarius on the southern horizon is wide and bright, and it seems to converge into a mighty stream, which is magnificent and breathtaking.

The Milky Way and the other half below the horizon (most of which can be seen in winter and spring) form a light band around the whole sky, but it looks dim and narrow at this time. This band of light is the Milky Way. In ancient China, the Milky Way was also called "Milky Way" and "Tianhe".

In the west, it is said that Zeus, the father of the gods, and Milla, a mortal, had a son named Hercules. Zeus asked Hercules to steal Hera's milk while she was sleeping, so as to gain the power of the queen. Hera woke up with a start, pushed away the nursing child in a rage, and then the milk spilled into heaven, forming a milky white light band. This is why the Milky Way is called the "milk road".

Now, people can see through telescopes that the Milky Way is made up of many dense stars. At the beginning of the 20th century, astronomers observed the sky through telescopes and realized that it was a "huge celestial body" containing 300 billion stars and other celestial bodies. What is the concept of "300 billion"? If a person counts 1, 2, 3, 4 ... once a second on average, and counts around the clock without eating or drinking, it will count as 9400 years.

"I don't know the true face of Lushan Mountain, but toward which corner of the mountain." It is impossible for human beings to see the whole picture of the Milky Way, because human beings themselves are in the Milky Way. Even if the existing space navigation technology changes with each passing day, modern humans can only orbit the solar system and cannot fly outside the Milky Way. However, astronomers infer the general structure of the Milky Way by statistical analysis and analogy: the front is close to a circle with a spiral arm pattern; Viewed from the side, it looks like a spindle with a spherical center and a flat side.

The Milky Way is roughly composed of three parts: the silver disk, the galactic nucleus ball and the silver halo. The silver disk is the main body of the Milky Way. In appearance, the silver disk is a flat disk with a thick middle and a thin edge, with a diameter of 65438+ million light years and a thickness of about 5000 light years. According to the observation of space telescope, there is a rod in the center of the silver disk, and both ends of the rod extend out of the spiral arms, which is the main component of the silver disk. A large number of hot young stars, gas and dust are concentrated in the spiral arms, which is an active star formation area.

At the center of the disc is a convex elliptical nuclear sphere with a radius of about 7000 light years and a silver core at the center. The silver disk is surrounded by a spherical silver halo composed of a small number of stars and interstellar matter, and its radius may extend to 300 thousand light years away. The stars in the silver core are densely distributed. They are older than the stars in the silver disk, but younger than the stars in the silver halo. The stars in the silver halo are concentrated in some dense globular clusters, which rotate around the silver center in their own directions along huge elliptical orbits.

So, where is the silver heart?

The ancient Greeks believed that the earth where human beings lived was the center of the universe. In the16th century, Copernicus reduced it to an ordinary planet and regarded the sun as the central celestial body of the universe. In the18th century, Herschel believed that the sun was the center of the Milky Way. In the 20th century, shapley "exiled" the sun to the cantilever of the Milky Way, tens of thousands of light-years away from the center of the Milky Way.

When the sun "leaves" the silver heart, who sits in the silver heart is a big concern for astronomers. In particular, the distance between the sun and the silver heart is not far, and it is necessary to clarify its "master". However, the silver heart is not easy to observe because it is covered with dust. This thick veil is really hard to see its mystery. Shapley noticed the special distribution of globular clusters in the sky, with the largest number in Sagittarius. He boldly assumed that the center of the Milky Way is the center of the globular cluster system. After long-term observation and constant correction by astronomers, the position of the silver heart was finally determined. It is located in Sagittarius, about 27,000 light years from the sun.

2065438+20071October, 165438+ American scientists said that there are two large bubble-like structures that emit gamma rays in the center of the Milky Way, which may be the remnants of the explosion of the super black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Gamma rays are the most energetic light. In the universe, they usually originate from high-energy events or celestial bodies, such as supernova explosions, black holes or neutron stars.

At present, scientists do not know the origin and energy source of this huge bubble structure. So far, the clearest picture of the center of the Milky Way is the infrared mosaic image released by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope at 20 1 1, which shows a new massive cluster.

Because the core of the Milky Way is covered by dust clouds in visible light that can be penetrated by infrared rays, what is inside remains to be continuously studied and discovered by human beings in the future.