Astronomy Picture of the Day

The Galactic Center in Infrared


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#91269 by @ 17.07.2006 00:00 - nach oben -
The Galactic Center in Infrared


Explanation:
The center of our Galaxy is a busy place. In visible light, much of the
Galactic Center
is obscured by opaque
dust.

In infrared light, however,
dust glows more and obscures less,
allowing nearly one million stars to be recorded in the
above photograph.

The
Galactic Center
itself appears
on the right and is located about 30,000
light years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius.

The
Galactic Plane of our
Milky Way Galaxy, the plane in which the
Sun orbits, is identifiable by the
dark diagonal dust lane.

The absorbing
dust grains are created in the atmospheres of cool
red-giant stars and grow in
molecular clouds.

The region directly surrounding the
Galactic Center
glows brightly in
radio and
high-energy radiation,
and is thought to house a large
black hole.




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