http://www.esa.int/export/images/INTEGRA1_M.jpg

There is a massive glow of gamma rays in the centre of our Galaxy, and the people in Europe have tried to investigate it. No one knew what was causing this glow, but it now seems to be coming from a number of massive neutron stars and giant balck holes. NASA were looking into this mystery and also the integral project was started by ESA and has shown that most of it is produced by a hundred individual sources.

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publ...y_mystery.html

The big gamma-ray telescope IBIS has now got to look inside the middle of our Galaxy. Integral has looked deep into our galaxy, a place where no person could see before, as there was too much blocking our Galaxy's centre. There has now been the discovery of 91 gamma-ray sources inside our Galactic core. They have found more than 90% of the energy from the Gamma core of our galaxy, energy output from these new objects accounts for almost ninety per cent of the gamma-ray from the center of the milky way.

http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEM2...D_index_0.html

http://www.esa.int/export/images/Int...terrebleue.jpg

Interesting news, although not unexpected. Not long ago, the idea of a black hole at the centre of a galaxy was absurd - not too much before that, the idea of a black hole itself was absurd - now it seems we are establishing some of the early states of phenomena observed distant in time and space. I would not be surprised if it is found that GRB's are indeed the merging of black holes, the production of super-massive black holes, in the galactic core, and what we are observing here at home is a piece of that evidence.

Good stuff, thanks for the link!

Footnote:

The article is about a "diffuse glow of gamma rays in the centre of our Galaxy" and not GRBs (Gamma Ray Bursts) which is a different phenomenon.

Yes, I am aware of that.

If you re-read my post, I think you'll understand the connection I was making between the two.

another image of the project, I wonder if there are any more plans like this? Maybe look inside the core of other galaxy also?

http://www.esa.int/export/images/INt...AT_ESTEC,1.jpg

Don't know if you caught my previous post that included this image, but here is a shot of the galaxy center utilizing the other end of the spectrum - radio waves, courtesy Scott Hyman of Sweet Briar College....

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thats a fantastic image, these types of projects are great, I hope we can soon learn more about the middle of our Galaxy

http://www.universetoday.com/am/uplo...17gamma-lg.jpg

they might not be giant neutonstars or massive blackholes, evidence also points that it could be a huge bulk of material that is being energised by rapidly rotating celestial 'powerhouses', such as dense clouds surrounding giant pulsars. This is appaers to be a great discovery, it should help us understand our galaxy.

There are no "giant neutron stars" or "giant pulsars" (rapidly spinning neutron stars). All neutron stars are between 1.4 and 3.2 Solar masses. Any smaller and they are white dwarfs. Any larger and they are black holes.

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how do you know this? There are no giant ones? Maybe you should explain it to them give them e mails?

The forces and physics in these stars are quiet unknow to us, it is silly to say we know what is going on. The physics inside these stars pushes the fudamental forces to their limits, inside the interior, gravatationals, electro magnetic, weak nuclear and strong nuclear have such high energy that we have to use new radical physics like string theory in order to model what is happening. Quantization effects predominate, so this forces particles into high energies so relative effects are very important. The surface of such stars are bizzare, below the surface the properties are beyond modern physics. The Neutron Star can cool quiclky by using neutrinos, but we have no real understanding of its polymers or its limit to size, or the actions inside the star itself, has can been able to look inside and see whats happening?

We might almost understand how stars become red giants, know the workings of a browing dwarf, but what can we truly understand of pulsars? We have a model that the star collapses and some is compressed into a tiny area. It stars to spin and acts as a dynamo and spins faster and faster. Yet do we understand this? It generates massive volatge and radiation, but what is happening and what is its limit? It has a highly organised mechanism for generating radiation, fantastic pulse beat, but also pulsars can exhibit bewildering complexity of behaviour, the pulse amplitude can vary dramatically , and its characteristic peaks can sometimes inside sucessive pulses drift overall steadily back and fprward within the pulse. No real explanation have come out to explain the model, its size or its limits. How can anyone when the matters inside are so dense that a single coin from the inside would weigh a 2 million million tonnes,. and how to explain this mass its weights, its limits with qarks, new anti-gravity, pions, string theory or neutron super fluids?

We know this based on gravity and the effects of degenerate matter. For a core remnant that is less than 1.4 solar masses electron degeneracy prevents the core from collapsing any further. We end up with a White Dwarf that will slowly cool off due to radiation.

Above 1.4 and less than 3.2 solar masses electron degeneracy cannot prevent collapse and the core remnant will fuse electrons and protons together to form neutrons. Neutron degeneracy prevents further collapse. Like the white dwarf the neutron star will slowly cool off due to radiation.

Above 3.2 solar masses neutron degeneracy cannot withstand the compression from gravity and the core remnant will collapse to a black hole.

Our observations to date seem to back up these numbers.

This explains it better than I can.

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lol

Um, his point was one of descriptive terminology. Saying, in other words, that the variance in size of such objects is in such a narrow range as to make modifiers such as 'giant' unnecessary. One would not refer - except in jext, and I have done so - to a average-sized human being as a giant dwarf.

As for your...I don't really know what to call it. Mass limits are basic physics. There is no disputing what he said - by strict point of fact, it is indisputably accurate. There are a great many unknowns in the universe, and indeed, the details of what you speak of could well be considered among them - but we must also accept that some basic things are well established. The Chandrasekhar Limit and the Pauli Exclusion Principle are pretty much as 'fact' as anything else we presume to call such. It's solid.

here is some more on the story

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ma_040318.html

there's more information on the more recent news

When a high power jets of positrons points in the direction of the earth, its electromagnetic radiation emission is detectable by using high tech instrumentation. These strange objects now called "blazars", emit mainly in the gamma-ray region. The INTEGRAL craft will allow a closer study of the physical characteristics of the jet and will reveal a possible high concentration of positrons in it's mission. The AO is expected to open on 13 September 2004

Milky Way Churns Out Seven New Stars Per Year, Scientists Say
http://www.physorg.com/news9595.html

Integral identifies supernova rate for Milky Way
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0601/04integral/

The really interesting thing about this article is that perhaps "dark matter" is not so terribly dark. Somehow, I think "transparent matter" would be better than dark, but that's just me.

The other interesting thing is that there may not be one single great black hole at the galactic center, but a cluster of them. I wonder if a "black cluster", forgive the neo-neo-logism, could set up an even horizon of its own.