Our solar system is situated in the galactic plane of the Milky Way galaxy, meaning that upon looking towards the centre of the galaxy our view is obstructed by billions of other solar systems between us and the black hole. The positioning and rotation of Sagittarius A and Messier 87 made them prime (and relatively close) galaxies for a clear view of their centres as compared to our closest neighbour, Andromeda.
M87 is rather diffuse compared to the Milky Way, and the black hole in its core is 6.4 BILLION solar masses compared to the 4.1 MILLION solar masses of ours, or about 1,500 times as massive.
All we see from ours is a few stars that seem to orbit something way too quickly. The one in M87 is a monster eating 90 Earths' worth of mass a day.
The one in M87 is a monster eating 90 Earths' worth of mass a day.
Of all the number and facts that i read today, this one is the one that really put me down on the scale of things. Jesus, we are nothing but star dust.
One of the repoters asked if they had any images of the one in our Galaxy after the main guy said they did point the telescope array toward it. I was hoping he was going to say they did, but the reason they don't is for exactly the reason the most upvoted answer said. But, he said they were still looking at it and to me it sounded like they were working on ways to correct for all the stuff in between us and the one in our galaxy.
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u/X-ision Apr 10 '19
Our solar system is situated in the galactic plane of the Milky Way galaxy, meaning that upon looking towards the centre of the galaxy our view is obstructed by billions of other solar systems between us and the black hole. The positioning and rotation of Sagittarius A and Messier 87 made them prime (and relatively close) galaxies for a clear view of their centres as compared to our closest neighbour, Andromeda.