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Milky
Way: A
Crowded
Neighborhood
The
center of
the Milky
Way is a
crowded
neighborhood
and not
always a
calm one,
as seen in
this image
from
NASA's
Chandra
X-ray
Observatory.
In
addition
to the
supermassive
black hole
at the
center,
the area
is filled
with all
sorts of
different
inhabitants
that
affect and
influence
one
another.
The image
shows
three
massive
star
clusters:
the Arches
(upper
right),
Quintuplet
(upper
center),
and the GC
star
cluster
(bottom
center),
which is
near the
enormous
black hole
known as
Sagittarius
A. The
massive
stars in
these
clusters
can
themselves
be very
bright,
point-like
X-ray
sources,
when winds
blowing
off their
surfaces
collide
with winds
from an
orbiting
companion
star. The
stars in
these
clusters
also
release
vast
amounts of
energy
when they
reach the
ends of
their
lives and
explode as
supernovas,
which, in
turn, heat
the
material
between
the stars.
The stars
near the
Galactic
Center
also can
emit
X-rays as
stellar
corpses --
either in
the form
of neutron
stars or
black
holes in
binary
systems --
and are
also seen
as
point-like
sources in
the
Chandra
image. |
