Comments on: Sun & Milky Way

By: dorix

dorix — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:49:35 +0000

Scrotum-Centaurus Arm

By: NoOneInParticular

NoOneInParticular — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:44:10 +0000

Uh – no. That’s not why they are bright. They pull in EVERYTHING, not just light. They are surrounded by a large disk of matter (called an accretion disk) that is slowly spiraling into the black hole. As it get closer to spiraling “down the drain”, it compresses and speeds up, which causes the matter to radiate and to shoot some matter off perpendicular to the maw (called a jet). It’s the jets and all that radiation the accretion disk throws off that makes a black hole bright. Ironically, black holes tend to be the brightest objects in the known universe, being easily easily visible trillions of light-years away.

By: deuce

deuce — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:33:23 +0000

*fap*

By: hufnmouth

hufnmouth — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 15:54:24 +0000

Not necessarily. An astrogator will need to orienteer from a known coordinate system. Since we know Sol, all coordinates and distances can be measured in relation to it.

By: hufnmouth

hufnmouth — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 15:47:53 +0000

It is. Black holes aren’t necessarily black. Recall that they trap and pull in light. Ergo, they have large concentrations of light surrounding them.

By: Timmay72

Timmay72 — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:54:50 +0000

I thought the center of our galaxy was a super massive black hole.

By: pi_neutrino

pi_neutrino — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 09:50:55 +0000

If you’re going to have a coordinate system for the entire galaxy, wouldn’t it make more sense to have en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A* at the origin?