Hidden in Plain Sight: A Neighboring Supermassive Black Hole Revealed by High-Speed Stellar Sleuthing

Hidden in Plain Sight: A Neighboring Supermassive Black Hole Revealed by High-Speed Stellar Sleuthing

Astronomers discovered a supermassive black hole within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This black hole, with a mass 600,000 times that of the Sun, was identified by tracking hypervelocity stars using the ESA’s Gaia satellite. The movements of these stars, propelled to high speeds, pointed to the influence of…

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The Cosmic Dance: Unveiling the Mysteries of Eccentric Orbits

The Cosmic Dance: Unveiling the Mysteries of Eccentric Orbits

Celestial orbits are more complex than simple circles, often taking eccentric paths around stars. Historical models, like the Ptolemaic system, attempted to explain planet movement with complicated mechanisms before Kepler’s discovery of elliptical orbits. Kepler revealed that planets travel in ellipses, with the concept confirmed by telescopic observations, such as Jupiter’s moons. Newton’s gravitational theory…

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