Movie of stars orbiting a black hole

[marcus]

http://www.mpe.mpg.de/ir/GC/images/movie2003.mpg

four stars photographed (timelapse over years) doing
various type orbits around the million-solar-mass hole at
the center of Milky

one doing elliptical, one kind of long skinny parabolic,
one on what looks like a one-shot hyperbolic flyby but
of course you can't be sure judging by eye alone

nice visual

thanks to Sean Carroll for flagging this

the high-resolution version (longer download) is at this page:
http://www.mpe.mpg.de/ir/GC/index.php
and also there is some text discussion,
the page is by some astronomy Max Planck Institute


here also is a movie taken of RR Lyrae stars going thru their cycles
where they change brightness and color over the course of hours
it is eerie to see stars changing so actively
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/%7Ejhartman/M3_movies.html
the moving image takes a few minutes to load but you can read about
Lyrae stars while it is loading
this movie was made today's "apod" astronomy picture of the day
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041012.html
but I found the original J. Hartman page of it, at the other URL, gave
more interesting details

again thanks to Sean Carroll for both links

 

[Echo 6 Sierra]

Very cool. Thank you.

 

[Tsu]

You always come up with great stuff, marcus. Thanks!

 

[avemt1]

interesting you should have your own forum LOL