To create the above video, Hubble took photos of Omega Centauri over in both 2002 to 2006. But the video doesn’t show that period. Instead, it’s a computer-powered projection of the next 10,000 years deduced from the snapshots.

“All of the stars in the cluster are orbiting around the center of the cluster, kind of like bees buzzing around a beehive,” said Jay Anderson, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland who helped model the stars’ motions. “If they weren’t moving then they would all fall into the center.”

Previous studies of the globular cluster — the brightest in the night sky — hinted that a massive black hole may be lurking at the center. But Roeland van der Marel, also an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute who worked on the research, said the motions he and his team helped tease out tell a different story.

“The case for such a black hole is weaker than it was before,” van der Marel said. “If there is a black hole in the center of the cluster, it cannot be as massive as had been previously suggested.”

Video: The projected motions of stars over the next 10,000 years at the heart of the Omega Centauri globular cluster. NASA/ESA/Jay Anderson and Roeland van der Marel/STScI

Image: A sample of the projected motions of Omega Centauri stars at the globular cluster’s core. Each streak is about 600 years’ worth of motion. The space between plotted dots represents about a 30-year gap. NASA/ESA/Jay Anderson and Roeland van der Marel/STScI

See Also:

• Hubble Captures Surprising Star Motions
• Simulate Star Clusters with Second Life Mod
• Rogue Black Holes Could Careen Across Milky Way
• Hubble Captures Image of Strange Giant Galaxy
• Black Hole Found in Unexpected Place
• Galactic Supervolcano Erupts From Black Hole
• Supermassive Black Holes Formed by Colliding Primordial Galaxies

Authors: Dave Mosher

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