Scene: Accretion Disk
efficiency. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy containing 100–400 billion stars. At its center lies Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole around which the entire galaxy rotates.
Accretion Disk
Swirling Matter
An accretion disk is a structure formed by diffuse material in orbital motion around a massive central body. Friction and other forces cause the material to spiral inward, releasing immense potential energy as heat and light, often becoming the brightest objects in the universe.
- Temp: 10^7 Kelvin
- Rotation: 0.5c orbital speed
- Friction: Viscous Heating
Black Hole X-ray Jet
Relativistic Beams
Astrophysical jets are beams of ionized matter ejected along the axis of rotation of a compact object, such as a black hole. When matter falls into a black hole, some of it is redirected by magnetic fields into powerful jets that travel at nearly the speed of light.
- Speed: >99% light speed
- Energy: X-rays & Gamma-rays
- Origin: Magnetic Fields
Supermassive Black Hole
Sagittarius A*
A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole, with mass on the order of millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. Most, if not all, galaxies are thought to contain a supermassive black hole at their centers, including Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way.
- Mass: 4.3 million Suns
- Distance: 26,673 light-years
- Diameter: 44 million km
Galaxy
The Milky Way
A galaxy is a gravitationally bound system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter. The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky.
- Diameter: 100,000 light-years
- Stars: 100-400 billion
- Age: 13.6 billion years