Official: Black Hole is "the sun of the Sun"

Nothing really new for those with some interest for astronomy but the 16-years research at Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik (Germany) have confirmed that there is a black hole at the center of the Milky Way. After long years of observations, the astronomers involved have concluded that there is no other possible explanation for the behaviour of the stars near Sagittarius A*. They found that there is an inner group of very fast rotating stars with randomly inclined orbits and an outer one of stars orbiting the black hole in an ecliptic-like plane.

The most important evidence has come, for what I could infer, from the orbit of S2, a star that moves so quickly that has completed one whole orbit around the GC black hole in those 16 years of watch. In their own words:

Observations by our group and by the UCLA group of the velocities and accelerations of stars in the Galactic Center over the course of the last decade have already provided strong evidence that SgrA* is in fact a black hole of about 2.6 million solar masses. However, these measurements could not rule out some alternatives to the black hole model. Two such alternatives are a ball of massive, degenerate fermions, like neutrinos, or a cluster of dark astrophysical objects, such as stellar mass black holes or neutron stars. These two alternative explanations can now be excluded by analyzing the orbit of S2:

In spring 2002 S2 was passing with the extraordinary velocity of more than 5000 km/s at a mere 17 light hours distance -- about three times the size of our solar system -- through the perinigricon, the point of closest approach to the black hole. By combining all measurements of the position of S2 made between spring 1992 and summer 2002, we have obtained enough data in order to determine a unique keplerian orbit for this star, presented in Figure 1. It is highly elliptical (eccentricity 0.87), has a semimajor axis of 5.5 light days, a period of 15.2 years and an inclination of 46 degrees with respect to the plane of the sky. From Kepler's 3rd law we can determine the enclosed mass in a straightforward manner to be 3.7±1.5 million solar masses. Therefore at least 2.2 million solar masses have to be enclosed in a region with a radius of 17 light hours. It is not possible to explain this result with a neutrino ball model because the required neutrino masses would be too large, or with a dense cluster of dark astrophysical objects because such a cluster would have the extremely short lifetime of at most a few hundred thousand years. Compared to the lifetime of our Galaxy of the order of 10 billion years this configuration is highly improbable. The only remaining alternative to the black hole model is a ball of bosons, which would be hard to distinguish from a black hole because of its small size. However, eventually, after some time such a ball would eventually collapse to a black hole after having accreted enough matter from its surroundings. Hence, the observed keplerian orbit of S2 around SgrA* provides compelling evidence for the existence of a massive black hole at the center of our Galaxy.

The inner cluster of fast rotating stars, artistic reconstruction

In the media:
- Science Daily
- BBC



Water and CO2 in extrasolar planet:

This also called my attention and has been mediatically relevant: an extrasolar "Jupiter" shows clear signs of having CO2 and water, substances that we immediately associate with life (though this extreme is, of course, unconfirmed yet).

(At BBC, at SD)

The Galactic Center marks astrological eras

The Galactic Center, also known as Sagittarius A is a huge black hole: a gigantic dark star that is the Sun of Suns in the Milky Way. Despite its size and importance It's not very apparent because even light has to bow to its huge attraction.

Due to precession of equinoxes, the Galactic Center (GC), otherwise virtually static in the firmament, moves 1º14' per century - and it does so in a normal forth (not retrograde) motion, like all other astrological objects of relevance except the Lunar nodes. It takes 2,432.4 years for the GC to cover a whole sign of the Zodiac. Right now the GC is in late Sagittarius, being at 26º52' in the year 2000 (now at 26º58').

It's been noticed that many people of historical relevance had important aspects, not necesarily harmonious, to the GC. But I will not dwell in this matter here.

Many astroogers believe in conventional astrological eras, based in the precession of 0º Aries as it was when the Western and Indian astrologies diverged, some 2,000 years ago, at the end of the Hellenistic period. This is a very arbitrary decission: after all precession is irrelevant for Western Astrology (not so for Jiotisha, the Indian tradition). Precession alone is meaningless for Western Astrology and more that date that correlates with no celestial object that I know of. These are the astrologers that talk of the "Age of Aquarius" and all that nonsense.

Instead the GC is a most important celestial object. A true objective referent. So I say we are not in the Age of Pisces, we are in the Age of Sagittarius: the age of expansion, knowledge (and religion too). It fits much better with the period that begun two decades after the failure of Hannibal against Rome and also few years before Rome conquered virtually all in the Mediterranean. It fits well with a period that started with the Jewish rebuiliding of the temple of Jerusalen (commemorated in Hannuka), continued with the preaching of Jesus and Muhammad and eventually derived in the age of discoveries, the age of reason and the age of space exploration. All very very Jovian, really.

But the Age of Sagittarius desn't stand alone in this self-sustaining logic. The ages before it, at least till the end of the last glaciation, are very coherent as well. The following overview is surely Eurocentric and my apologies to all for such a narrow aproach.


The Astrological Ages as defined by the Galactic Center:

· 178 BCE - 2254 CE: Age of Saggitarius (already commented)

· 2610 - 178 BCE: Age of Scorpio - Begins with the apogee of Megalithism and the foundation of several civilizations in Iberia, Malta and the Cyclades, as well as the Semitization of Mesopotamia. It continues through the late Chalcolitic (Copper Age), with the consolidation of Indo-Europeans in Central Europe (Corded Ware) and the Bell-Beaker phenomenon (traders?). It then enters in the quite violent Bronze and Iron ages, culminating in the Persian and Macedonian empires, among other stuff.

· 5042-2610 BCE: Age of Libra - Unlike warlike and ambitious Scorpio, sign of radical changes, Libra is a more civic sign. The Age of Libra actually begins with the foundation of the first commonly acknowledged civilization: Sumer (Eridu, El Ubayd). It's also the apogee of the great Neolithic expansion, when it reaches the shores of the Atlantic. These beginnings are followed by the expansion of Megalithism, as well as the developement of the oldest European states (Balcans), inspired by Troy (founded c. 3000 BCE), as well as the rise of dynastic Egypt. The last centuries announce the Age of Scorpio to come, with the first Indo-European and Semitic incursions in their respective historical areas.

· 7474-5042 BCE: Age of Virgo - Virgo holds a spike, Virgo is Ceres... and hence the Age of Virgo is that of Neolithic. While the first Neolithic surely began before 7500 BCE, it is in this period when it consolidates and initiates its expansion. The famed town of Catalhöyük, with its magnificient home-temples of bulls, lionesses and mother goddesses was founded just at the beginning of this age, while some transitional Mesolithic-Neolithic cultures like ancient Jerico or Göbekli Tepe instead arrive to their end. In this period, Neolithic technology, cultures and way of life spread widely around the Near East.

· 9906-7474 BCE: Age of Leo - Leo is ruled by the Sun and therefore the Age of Leo began with the end of the Ice Age. It is the period of transition to Neolithic (Mesolithic) in the Near East, while the rest of the world remained in the so-called Epipaleolithic stage. The beginning of this era is also that of the oldest known pottery with the Jomon culture of Japan (ancient Ainus).

The matter becomes less clear when we enter the Paleolithic period as such. As cultures last for several of these ages often and also the chronology becomes less and less precise as we look back. Also there is no certainty (as far as I know) that Earth's woble (the cause of precession) has not changed in such long spans of time.

Anyhow here there is an outline (again for Europe mostly):

· Magdalenian period: GC in Taurus, Gemini and Cancer. The beginning of Cancer is roughly coincident with the end of the expansion of Magdalenian, while the transit through Gemini corresponds maybe with the greatest cave art (Taurus??).

· The Solutrean period is fully coincident with the transit of the GC through Aries. It's also the last glacial maximum, when cold possibly depopulated most of Central Europe.

· The Gravettian period spans, depending of the region, through the signs of Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. In some areas it last (Epigravettian) until the arrival of Neolithic. It is the period of Cro-Magnon people (properly, or narrowly, speaking).

· The Aurignacian period spans through Libra and Scorpio (extended in some areas until Gravettization and even beyond).

· Earliest Aurignacian possibly begun in Central Asia much earlier. The chronology is imprecise partly because of the novelty and partly because of issues with C-14 for such early dates. It may be some time between the previous Pisces and Aries transits of the GC (but with great uncertainty: Aquarius and Taurus are also possible).

· The great expansion of H. Sapiens in Asia (from their early settlements around the Arabian Sea maybe) is also uncertain (too few fossils) but may have begun some time around 60 or 50 milennia BCE. Too large a span to say anything with GC astrology.

· But the great Toba eruption, that may have triggered the migration out of Africa, has a quite precise date: c. 74,000 BCE. That seems to be during a transit of the GC by late Taurus. Then with Gemini the travel would have begun maybe.