Simulation of the orbits of stars around the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way

This simulation shows the orbits of a tight group of stars close to the supermassive blackhole at the heart of the Milky Way. During 2018 one of these stars, S2, passed very close to the black hole and was the subject of intense scrutiny with ESO telescope. Its behaviour matched the predictions of Einsteins's general relativity and was inconsistent with simpler Newtonian gravity.
More information and download options: www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1...
Credit:
ESO/L. Calçada/spaceengine.org

[@kitsouk1]

The Best simulation of the orbits of the stars near Sgr A* yet! A very busy neighbourhood.

[@switchdogdotorg]

Sagittarius AIs very popular .... real estate is a good investment over there

[@jamesaron1967]

@Ghost The simulation is just showing known stars. One could imagine all the other objects orbiting in that neighborhood...

[@carolyndiaz9577]

Did you see what was posted yesterday the two black holes dancing in space it was simply amazing

[@VikingTeddy]

You know how busy? One million stars within 4 light years. That's busy!

[@corazoncubano5372]

Its mind blowing thinking about what is going on at our galactic center. Amazing how an object like Sgr A* can exert such tremendous influence on objects and matter billions of miles away. Just mind blowing.

[@DrGreerIsRight]

Talk about something durable.

[@UwU-ok2jr]

it's not surprising sagittarius a is a fricking black hole

[@PaagalTV4k]

Im not surprised it can hold entire galaxy

[@timetraveler1203]

@@PaagalTV4k no it cant

[@kapsi]

@@PaagalTV4k No, the galaxy is a million times more massive than the black hole

[@MrEnjoivolcom1]

Finally a good version and not just that 4 balls of light showing one some star be whipped around. This shows so much more!

[@KevinS47]

WOW ESO is using Space Engine ??! Thats amazing!! It's great, seriously.

[@vemelon]

That this was Space Engine was my very first thought ^^

[@George.Coleman]

The fact that Sagittarius A* barely moves (relative) while entire stars whizz around it at large fractions of the speed of light is mind blowing. We forget that we're not just in orbit around our Sun, but actually you, me and everything else in our solar system is captured in the orbit of this gravitational monster. And then there's Andromeda to think about in our wake.

[@konoeyoshito6105]

the perihelion and aphelion of these stars is mind blowing

[@KingCobbones]

It might be more appropriate to use apsides, since they're not really orbiting a star. Perihole and apohole?

[@mlb6d9]

Wow.....quite possibly one of the coolest things I have seen, and to imagine the effort and observation involved putting this together! Whats more is to imagine the radius of the largest Black Hole found so far goes past the orbit of Neptune.....

[@Astronomynatureandmusic]

Is that the radius of the black hole - or the radius of its event horizon?

[@TripleKmafia]

@@AstronomynatureandmusicEvent horizon.

[@Domispitaletti]

Could watch it all day👍Need a longer video.

[@creativesource3514]

Remember to as you get closer to the black hole time slows down until finally time stops at edge. So you will need more than a month. 😉

[@Domispitaletti]

@@creativesource3514 😀Yes. We're always moving at speed of light in the spacetime. The combination of our speed in time direction + our speed in space direction = speed of light. But we can trade space and time. So when we go faster in space direction, we go slower in time direction. Since gravity is an acceleration, time will slow down closer to a massive body. Its not clear if time would stop completely though. If there is a quanta of time, it can't stop due to uncertainty principle. But most probably time is smooth and continuous and there is no quanta of time. A particle that we could name Cronus😀

[@creativesource3514]

@@Domispitaletti Can't disagree with anything you said. 👍🏾 I think for a particle travelling at the speed of light, it doesn't progress at all through time and distances contract to nothing. On a blackhole I think the perceives no time due to extreme gravity (curved spacetime).

[@themog4911]

I think it took about 26 years of observations to make this video :)

[@Hey_MikeZeroEcho22P]

A VERY COOL video!!!!! Good Job putting that together, graphics, labels, accuracy ( I'm sure ) and neat sound track...... again, Good Job ESO!!!

[@milkywegian]

Just found this another calm channel.

[@rubensantos557]

so many beautiful things happening out there waiting to be discovered but first we must take good care of our "mothership" if we are to ever witness them closer

[@horizontalmapping7033]

That's the main problem. Coz humans are not taking care of their 'mother ship' the earth.. We are slowly killing our planet through mining and CO2 emissions.. Really sad stuff..

[@jeffwads]

We never will discover anything in person out there past our solar system unless forced to leave. FTL travel is not possible and things are too distant. But you should already know that.

[@CosmicCleric]

@@jeffwads FTL is theoretically possible.

[@andremaccarini1656]

@@CosmicCleric Yeah but causality is a bitch and I doubt FTL will ever be practical.

[@CosmicCleric]

@@andremaccarini1656 I'm sure that in the past humans had the same kind of conversation like we are but about 'flying in the air'. With our opposible thumbs and ingenuity made duct tape we'll figure shit out. There's too much real estate out there, combined with our species need to explore, to never figure it out. That is if we don't kill each other first. Edit: I really hate my phone's auto correct feature.

[@Andreschannel_SA]

Oooh, how satisfying to find a clip about the universe with the correct spelling of the words "centre" in its title and "behaviour" in the description. You got a new subscriber.

[@tarunnarain4545]

Just to annoy you : center 😂

[@Stickyybenzz]

centre is for british people, center is for americans. same goes with favourite and favorite

[@shattaredentertainment4782]

To think its keeping the milky way together and spinning. Its size and power is awe inspiring.

[@TactileCoder]

You're incorrect. While the black hole exerts tremendous gravitational force, the milky way is kept together by its collective mass of gas, dust, stars and planets. (and maybe dark matter)

[@Astronomynatureandmusic]

@@TactileCoder And indeed something we call dark matter - which may defy our understanding and as such reshape the entire thinking catalogue we have right now of 'matter'.

[@gogogravity]

The key for stars to stay out of direct impact is speed. It can take a very long time for a star to be sucked into a black hole.

[@-Rook-]

Very cool. I was trying to find out how often the galactic core consumes stars, judging by this I guess the answer is pretty much never. Its interesting to see how close together that cluster of stars are.

[@rx80]

Thanks for the video. Love the space music!

[@arnoldgg]

To put things in perspective, the start S2 at its closest pass to Sgr A*, which is about 120 AU, reaches 8000 Km/s or 2.7% of the speed of light. I calculated that at that distance, S2 is experiencing a G force acceleration of about 18 m/s^2 from the black hole! That is about twice the G force at the surface of earth, while S2 is still 4 times farther away from the black hole compared to Pluto's distance to Sun!

[@KANA-rd8bz]

That is the best metaphor for our short lives: we meet each other for blink of an eye, while each of us has his own orbit. And you cannot tell no ones orbit, you can only simulate it based on your short observation.. as well as simulate your own "orbit"=path.

[@anthonydefex777]

That's great man!

[@thedatatreader]

I noticed a lot of similarities between this and the actual timelapse footage from the telescope which was recently made public. I wonder how both would look interpolated.

[@Vanoncam]

Super interessantes Video. Mit welchem Zeitraffer wurde die Simulation gezeigt?

[@narutowebby]

Wish this video was longer!!!

[@TheSacrafanianEmpire]

Music credit?

[@Boulos-cb2un]

That is so freaking cool.

[@daviantunesdossantos4614]

Muito Bom! Amei. Grato.

[@drkcobra]

I must say this is an absolutely fabulous simulation, and I'm going to date myself but it also reminds me of a broken spirograph LOL

[@Astronomynatureandmusic]

If we see a star moving at 1% of light speed relative to the black hole, that would be 30.000 km/sec. My question - how does that star experience its own speed relative to the black hole?

[@makismakiavelis5718]

I also have the same question. We are used to living in a planet with an almost circular orbit. How would it feel like to be accelerated so suddenly? In the video I see the star "S2" and its has a highly elliptical orbit. I can't understand how this star can keep its matter together under such strong forces. The only thing I can think of is that the star survives because its center of gravity is much closer to its surface than the black hole. The black hole has a much stronger gravitational field but the star's center of gravity acts on a much shorter distance, thus the star is able to keep its gasses together.

[@stephensmith3708]

If true pretty scary but yet captivating!😯 It's a oooh and awe wonder.😯

[@hungfao]

Great video but it would be nice to have some kind of time orientation in the corner to judge how fast these stars are moving.

[@StormsandSaugeye]

20 years for the orbits to complete on average. With the closest in (Not 538) having an orbit of precisely 20 years. So this shows a few hundred years worth of movement as that one Star orbited at least 5 times during this clip.

[@craigrogers2882]

The Fabric Of Time And Space......Amazing.....Want to see a collision or two!

[@MrFilmoreJr]

The distance. The many different orbits of stars around this black hole with potential to collide and think of the size of these many stars compared to our star. Astonishing!

[@a.square8658]

They are several AU apart even at closest approach, they'll never collide. They might interact with each other gravitationally, though.

[@MrFilmoreJr]

Griffon Koch wow.....

[@TsarOfTheStar]

Yes!

[@giusepecadduraofc]

Watching this while high on shrooms is awesome

[@kustomweb]

Great video. Commentary of some kind is always better though.

[@kroon275]

Very thoughtful vid and a 👍 but are u sure theres dozens of stars within a light-months distance?

[@Nerdule]

Yes! The galactic core has a stellar density much, much higher than our own part of the neighborhood.

[@makismakiavelis5718]

Question: Some of these stars eccentricity seems to be close to 0.6 - 0.8, meaning they are highly elliptical. Some of them even look like they have parabolic trajectories. Their acceleration as they near Sag. A* must be tremendous. If we lived on a planet orbiting one of these stars, would we be able to survive or entire planets would get ripped apart due to the intense tidal forces?

[@Astronomynatureandmusic]

I would safely place my bet on the ripping :)

[@SurajLamichhane]

the species that evolve there will have evolved to survive such forces. we on the other hand..

[@chandanroy3084]

Hmm fascinating....

[@tp1558]

I don't know that space have beat. That's amazing.

[@michaelmiller7371]

Found it thank you

[@javinho3943]

Amazing..

[@ssj3theoutsider228]

I wonder...does these stars orbits S.A* continuously or have them been absorbed already? I heard that black holes doesn't absorbs distant objects

[@mattp1337]

WHERE'S THE TIMESCALE?

[@flatmarssociety4614]

1 second = 1 year, carefully analized with star s2

[@-_Nuke_-]

Also the stars are not in scale with the distances measured... Meaning that if that circle is a light month, it's impossible for the actual circumference of any star to be that big as in the simulation, in other words, if that light month circle is that big you wouldn't be able to see any star's circumference with the naked eye. We only see the star's bloom not the actual true volume of the star which is many many times smaller than this . TLDR; Stars in the visualisation are millions of times smaller than what we see (or photograph), since we are only seeing their bloom not their actual shape. That's also true for every star we have ever seen so far appart from our own Sun.

[@nicolasrenold]

NUKE we have direct images of the surface of Betelgeuse, and we can measure the angular diameter of other stars directly although not image them.

[@kaowpannewschannel1938]

Yeah

[@ArnabBose]

How fast does time run in this video?

[@mattp1337]

Yeah, exactly. Awesome video, but the absence of a timescale is a glaring omission.

[@51esv]

Each star has a different timescale. S2 gets closest to the BH and completes its orbit every 16 years.

[@mattp1337]

We're not asking about relativistic effects on each star. This simulation isn't intended to represent realtime; the simulations timescale is multiplied by some amount. 1000x, 10000x, 1000000x? Knowing S2's orbit takes 16 years is useful, so thanks for that, but the videos makers should've included a timescale.

[@51esv]

Oh ok. I understand now. Thanks.

[@DrunkenUFOPilot]

I'd guess that, very roughly, about tens seconds of animation time is a year of real time. I could be off by a factor of two.

[@sanjaygatne1424]

How do we determine the 3D position of stars at that distance.

[@sinistadropbear5257]

Awesome!👍👍👍😎🤘

[@Rossilaz58]

Wow! ESO uses space engine?

[@RaisedxFist]

I clicked the link for the video but stayed for the song👍🍻!

[@johnnysparkleface3096]

I wonder how many of those stars are in doomed orbits. I suppose all of them will eventually get sucked into the black hole. Here's a better question: is our sun (hence, our solar system) in a doomed orbit around a black hole, and we haven't yet realized it?

[@ganikajoshi618]

बेहतरीन उत्तम

[@kaowpannewschannel1938]

What a giant star lot

[@xebatansis]

Space is beautiful.

[@sagarpuri7838]

Music was amazing

[@lawrencebautista1]

I wonder if any of these stars have stable planetary systems even though theyre so tightly packed together.

[@Soundlmpact]

this reminds me of the game Spore

[@mario0318]

One can only imagine the thousands upon hundred thousands if not millions of celestial objects which can't yet be detected by us orbiting around all of those stars and black hole.

[@Koda780]

Wow

[@bradyvelvet9432]

Make this screen saver!

[@pelimies1818]

Crazy..

[@cynthiabinder3730]

Looks like (cerns)elements particulars,electrons protons , etc.🥼⚛🕶⚛

[@618_raw]

Music?

[@mohsin1954]

Imagine the planets around these stars 🤔

[@sa.8208]

and they say theres no way to link the large to the small.

[@dokeddysimanjuntak]

The stars are in stable orbirs. I wonder if any of the stars could collide with each other.

[@whattowatchrightnow]

Can you imagine being an a planet caught in the orbit of one of those stars? like 555? just whipping around SagA*. What kinda view would they have?

[@tomhall1758]

What we see now in the center of the galaxy is at least 20,000 years old.

[@Sn-js7fx]

👍

[@bobwitkowski6410]

That is such a hog pog. It would seem that collisions would happen regularly and what about their planets? Do they collide?

[@rupeshdharme9017]

All those stars are their images at different instances in time.

[@kylemaritz4673]

S2 probablyy took a week or two to sling shot like that.

[@streamofconsciousness5826]

1:27 that one coming from the top almost was captured there, there are no planets orbiting that Star any more, that would have flung them all off. I guess most of these have no satellites. Do we know?

[@VikingTeddy]

We do. All of the closest stars have been in contact. They are constantly (relatively speaking) ripping eachother to shreds by passing close, or even touching. They aren't even stars as we know them. Their cores are exposed and the matter around is spread out so they are like something between a star and a gas cloud

[@jeremyjery01]

I am wonder if any of these stars have his own planets or planet systems. It must be wonderful to live on one of them, if it were possible

[@TheOneWhoMightBe]

Given how close the stars are, any planets which did manage to form would be quickly ripped away and become rogue planets also orbiting Sag A*.

[@michaelmiller7371]

Which is S2 I cant find it

[@astronomer-0754]

Do you have SpaceEngine? I'm sure you can find the star S2.

[@gapnet2919]

AlaxamduLilah i Robil Alaminn

[@NicolaFaccioliniTv]

We Italians must build the first interstellar spaceship to study Gargantua directly.

[@psuedozardozz]

I wonder if any of those stars came within a billion miles of Sagittarius A*.?

[@davidsosnak2968]

psuedozardozz 20bil

[@mattp1337]

The final distance scale 1 light day = ~26 billion km radius = ~16 billion miles radius. So a couple of them are getting within that general range, and all of them will eventually end up going down the hole.

[@brucephillip6456]

I wanna see a star just go kershploot right smack dab into the middle of that

[@lukasmorski-zmij8030]

atoms in macroscale

[@carolyndiaz9577]

Always

[@CrazyFunnyCats]

That black hole 🕳

[@sweiland75]

Didn't astronomers find that there were actually multiple, small black holes there?

[@granthudson5447]

advanced civilizations live there

[@darthwader4472]

No social distancing there...

[@rizalriddick1690]

If supermassive blackhole Sgr A* ejects a galactic jet it must be wonderfull to see

[@anilsrikantiah3998]

Will humans explore the galaxy... All those dots are all stars... Mind blowing...

[@terranrepublic7023]

Well that's depressing, to think that the furthest man made object from earth is but 21 light hours away (V1), closer than the smallest bubble (1 light day) in that video, but it's been flying through space for how long now? almost 50 years? lol

[@vkobevk]

ye universe sandbox 3 😊

[@amir.hazwan]

Is that the reason why the centre of the galaxy so bright?

[@amir.hazwan]

@NoTheEarthIsntFlat Thanks!

[@Khorzho]

Can you imagine the radiation levels in that area?

[@user-kr9kp2wk8e]

all other star planet circle in space of one disc. why this circle in 3D

[@spearofdestinyy]

蒋炜 because they are not planets And planets can move in wave like motion while revolving around stars earth does it too

[@tegros3]

This will help...kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZpurpKRpa8SBirc

[@vincentnord5914]

I would love to see two stars colliding from a front-row seat even if I die afterwards.

[@MrShubhamenx]

You may live if you take a back seat. Just a suggestion.

[@straightup7up]

Eventually those stars will be gobbled up by Sagitarius-A, but thy can orbit for millions of years before that happens.

[@Christabbaword]

STAR WORD HAS NOT BEEN SOWN YET

[@maxengine6277]

solaspace engine

[@eliyahaverial]

....I'm scared..

[@manojsaxena1462]

It is not black hole but it is black ball mean black ball large sun like our sun or color else depend on conditions.

[@astronomer-0754]

Well, a black hole is clearly a space object that can evaporate some other space object like a star. And so the black sphere in space is called a "black hole."

[@astronomer-0754]

Plus, some stars that contains a black hole at their core are known as *Quasi-stars.*

[@chittudas651]

8 laky no

[@ecu4321]

The background music is so 1970s/80s lol

[@ArisLA-wk1hg]

Cartoon for adults?

[@ShifuCareaga]

*z pinch

[@ShifuCareaga]

electrogravitic Z pinch charge increases inertial mass. Look up Biefield-Brown effect Also, bear in mind that black holes have a non physical radius of 0, the Schwarzchild radius R is defined as 0. They are mathematical, not physical radii, according to black hole theoreticians. So they do not exist, literally. They are a short hand model. Like photons. Photons are not particles. They are conveniently made to be like particles, but light is not particles. You can know this because in an even light source, in a blank room, the light will distribute perfectly evenly and never in clusters or diluted sections as particles would behave in wave like motion. Rather, quanta is a description of the inductive mechanism, and c is the rate of induction. It fluctuates slightly under the effects of charge, but they have defined the meter to the speed of light now, so that the small fluctuations are "constant". You can use the term black hole, if you prefer... but it is not a dot that sucks light in. It is a EMF effect where actually massive energy is transformed and ejected out. HENCE the "astrophysical jets" (Birkeland currents) emerging from SGR A*. You can look those up, for your interest. Cheers. oh, and the current is going to be in the 10^15 A range

[@51esv]

The wavelength of light from S2 becomes longer when the star draws close to Sagittarius A*. That phenomenon is known as "gravitational redshifting" because as the starlight passes through an intense gravitational field its photons lose energy, causing the color of the light to turn a bit more reddish. "This is predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, and we have precisely seen that effect," Stefan Gillessen, a staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, and a member of the team of astronomers, told MACH in an email. "The light got redshifted by exactly the amount it should."

[@ShifuCareaga]

51esv of course it did. Being that Relativity came from Lotentzian transformations of Maxwell's equations and then you're talking quantum mechanics, what else can it do. But it wasn't due to gravity. You won't find gravity in dilation equations. You will find c, light, and light is emf. Einstein described the photoelectric effect. Relativity came from Poincare. But the bunk idea of space-time as the new ether is, frankly, garbage. That's why dark energy fails every test like the search for symmatrons. Space is not an object. Time is not an object. Relativity describes the behavior of light's charge. Gravity is inertia related. Mass is charge related.

[@ShifuCareaga]

51esv note- they didn't find microlensing. They never find teal Einstein rings... Because lensing happens at the solar limb, but not at twice the limb. I don't support MOND but they are right about this issue.

[@benquinney2]

Proves GR

[@DrunkenUFOPilot]

No, not in strict philosophy of science terms. "Proof" is only for pure math. Yes, so far as everyday theoretical physics. At least, all the plausible competitors have either fallen away due to mismatches with observation, or they're too contrived and tweaked to force-fit the data that no one wants to take them seriously any more. GR has done very well. If there's any realm in which GR isn't fully "proven" it's with stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars, and we have LIGO and similar instruments to explore those with gravitational waves. I have a hunch GR will pass all tests with flying colors, and we'll be reading "GR is a proven theory" everywhere in ten years or so.