A cosmic weather balloon at the center of the Milky Way
Monday, September 30, 2013 - 10:00
in Astronomy & Space
The radiation field at the center of the Milky Way must be 1,000 times stronger than in the area surrounding our sun. Astrophysicists used computer simulations to reach this conclusion. The calculations are based on the data from a type of "cosmic weather balloon" -- the temperature data of an especially dense gas cloud near the center of the galaxy. Their research provides a new insight into the process of star formation, which is believed to take a different form at the centre of the Milky Way than it does at the galaxy's edges.