The center of the Galaxy has been observed in near infrared (just
red-ward of the the reddest color that humans can perceive)
wavelengths. The stars orbit rapidly a supermassive (millions of
times the mass of our Sun) black hole. Observations over several
years detect stars moving around the black hole. In this module, the
student measures the motion of one of the many stars in orbit around
the black hole. This involves using a specialized Blender Tool to simultaneously
display the star field at two times to measure the distance traveled
by the star. The results are plotted in Plotter Tool and the student is
asked to estimate the mass of the black hole from the measured orbital
velocity.
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