Data from Gaia space telescope reveals galaxy's original nucleus

Bob Yirka is a research scientist at Phys.org.

The original nucleus of the universe has been found. They wrote a paper and uploaded it to the arXiv preprint server.

Astronomers have been unable to prove that a nucleus of stars exists at the center of the Milky Way. The researchers looked through the data from the space telescope. The theory suggests that if there is a nucleus of stars at the center of the universe, they are likely to have less metal than other stars because they were formed before the formation of the universe.

The majority of them would be made up of hydrogen and helium. If there is a nucleus of stars at the center of the galaxy, it would most likely be located in the constellation Sagittarius, according to theories that have been around for a long time. The team had to sift through approximately 2 million stars. They used computer assistance and perseverance to find a group of 18,000 stars at the center of the Milky Way. The researchers note that the stars in the cluster have a small amount of metal in their system.

The location of what should be the center of the disk was pinpointed by the researchers after they noted the star cluster's movement compared to other stars. Stars that were blocked by objects were accounted for. The cluster makes up less than 2% of the total mass of the universe.

More information: Hans-Walter Rix et al, The Poor Old Heart of the Milky Way, arXiv:2209.02722 [astro-ph.GA] arxiv.org/abs/2209.02722

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