Ever stared straight at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy? Give it a try this coming week. With dark skies and no moon, the time is right.
Notice I didn’t say into the heart. No human eyes can penetrate the veil of interstellar dust that cloaks the galactic central point 26,000 light years away in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Only X-ray, gamma ray and radio telescopes can ‘part the way’ and expose the galaxy’s dark secret which astronomers call Sagittarius A*.
There, at the center of it all, lies a black hole with a mass of 4 million suns. The innermost 3.2 light years centered on the black hole swarms with thousands of aged stars and about 100 fresh-born ones, some in very tight orbits about the hole. Gas clouds abound, and there’s at least another smaller black hole nearby.
Occasionally the central black hole flares to life when a random asteroid, gas cloud or stray star passes too close and gets ripped to pieces before disappearing down the gullet of the beast. Heated by friction, the material sends out every type of light from visible to X-rays and gamma rays. But no one can see all the excitement because it’s hidden by light years of dust grains. To the eye, the center looks nondescript and static, but nothing could be further from the truth.
The Milky Way is beautiful to gaze at this time of year. Take a drive to the country and park your car where the sky is dark and open to the south. At nightfall, you’ll see a fiery-hued star a few fists up from the southern horizon at nightfall. That’s Antares in Scorpius. Now shift your gaze two fists to the left or east and see if you can spot the outline of the Teapot. Once you’ve found it, galactic center lies just above the spout.
Though the center remains hidden, large chunks of the Milky Way hover like clouds against the black sky. Every puffy piece is comprised of billions of distant stars the light of which blends together to form a misty haze. Here and there are smaller knots. These are individual gas clouds called nebulae and bright star clusters. A pair of 40-50mm binoculars will show many of these wonders and countless fainter stars plainly. If we could magically remove the dust between us and the galactic center, the rich intensity of stars in the Sagittarius direction would be bright enough to cast shadows at night.
Take it all in. Let your eyes follow the arc from the southern horizon clear up across the eastern sky and back down to the northeastern horizon. We live here – can you believe it?