Visit the heart of the Milky Way in this 360-degree 4K simulation (video)



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Put yourself at the center of a constantly evolving Milky Way with this new immersive video, which combines NASA Ames' super computer simulations with data from the Chandra X-ray observatory.

The viewer sits at the location of Sagittarius A *, the supermassive black hole that is hiding in the heart of the Milky Way. From there it is possible to watch the gases take off from giant stars and collide with streams of other stars, sometimes offering a meal at the huge black hole that is hiding at a few light years.

The blue and cyan colors in the visualization represent low-density hot gas X-ray emissions (reaching temperatures of tens of millions of degrees); while red identifies ultraviolet emissions from denser and colder gases (tens of thousands of degrees); yellow indicates the emissions of the coldest gas with the highest densities, according to a NASA statement.

You can experience viewing yourself in the window above and watch a commented tour in the video below.

"A collection of gas emitting X-rays moves slowly when she is away from Sgr A *, then accelerates and whips the viewer as she moves forward," NASA officials said in a statement. its press release. "Sometimes, clusters of gas collide with gas ejected by other stars, which causes an X-ray flash when the gas is heated, then it cools down quickly." Further away from the viewer, the film shows also collisions of fast stellar winds producing X-rays. These collisions are thought to be Chandra's main source of hot gas. "

"When a gas explosion occurs very close to the black hole, the ejected gas collides with material drifting massive stars into the wind, pushing it back and making it shine in X-rays," continues the press release. "When the explosion has stopped, the winds return to normal and the X-rays fade."

The video is the sequel to one published in January 2018 at the 231st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Maryland, and also places you at Sag A *.

From NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory is a space telescope that surrounds the Earth in an elliptical orbit, allowing it to observe interstellar targets for 52 hours. The spaceship was briefly put away In October, we had a problem with one of his gyroscopes maintaining orientation, but we now return to mapping the cosmos to X-rays.

Email Sarah Lewin at [email protected] or follow her. @SarahExplains. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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