Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Astronomy

X-rays reveal the Galaxy's centre

Nature volume 415, pages 128–129 (2002)Cite this article

For twenty years astronomers have wondered what is responsible for the X-ray emission from the centre of our Galaxy. New data from the sharpest X-ray eye around — the Chandra observatory — reveal all.

By the middle of the twentieth century astronomers knew that our Solar System was located far from the centre of the Milky Way — that broad swath of starlight you can see on a clear night. So what is at the centre of our Galaxy? The Milky Way is some 80,000 light years across and contains more than a hundred billion stars. Clouds of dust prevent optical astronomers from seeing the Galactic Centre, but infra red, radio and X-ray wavelengths are largely unaffected. Indeed, infrared observations have revealed that several million stars are located within a light year of the centre. Within this central region is a strong radio source that is thought to be a supermassive black hole marking the true heart of our Galaxy. On page 148 of this issue, Wang, Gotthelf and Lang1 report new observations from the Chandra X-ray observatory which provide the most detailed X-ray map yet of objects near the Galactic Centre.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Computer illustration of an X-ray binary system.

SPL

References

  1. Wang, Q. D., Gotthelf, E. V. & Lang, C. C. Nature 415, 148–150 (2002).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Valinia, A. et al. Astrophys. J. 543, 733–739 (2000).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Tanaka, Y., Koyama, K., Maeda, Y. & Sonobe, T. Publ. Astron. Soc. Jpn 52, L25–L30 (2000).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Barret, D. et al. Astrophys. J. 533, 329–351 (2000).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Serabyn, E. & Morris, M. Nature 382, 602–604 (1996).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Koyama, K. et al. Publ. Astron. Soc. Jpn 48, 249–255 (1996).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Eckart, A. & Genzel, R. Nature 383, 415–417 (1996).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Eckart, A. & Genzel, R. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 284, 576–598 (1997).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Ghez, A. M., Klein, B. L., Morris, M. & Becklin, E. E. Astrophys. J. 509, 678–686 (1998).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Baganoff, F. K. et al. Nature 413, 45–48 (2001).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physics, University of Cologne, Zülpicher Strasse 7, Köln, 50937, Germany

    Andreas Eckart

Authors
  1. Andreas Eckart
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andreas Eckart.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Eckart, A. X-rays reveal the Galaxy's centre. Nature 415, 128–129 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/415128a

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/415128a

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing