What is the big bright light in the center of a galaxy ?

[NicoleRiver]

does anyone know ?

i searched the whole internet and can't seem to find a proper answer. obviously not a giant star right ? can anyone give me a detailed info ? thanks..

 

[Floridian]

Its a massive cluster of stars and gas. The center of the galaxy is like the nucleus. A lot of the mass of the galaxy is here.

Take the limbs of the galaxy and shove them all together in that circle and it would glow that bright.

As that giant glowing mass is many light years big, if it were just one object its gravity would instantly collapse into a black hole unless it was just a giant field of gas, in which case the gas would have probably compressed as well.

Basically its a bunch of stars orbiting the galactic core.

At the very center there is probably a super massive black hole.

 

[MeteorWayne]

That's correct. In these images of galaxies, they are too far away to see individual stars, so you only see the brightess over large areas. In this case, a long exposure was taken to show the fainter outer regions, which makes the center where the number of stars per volume is much higher is oberexposed as a big blob.

 

[bdewoody]

I may have asked this before but how far out from the galactic core would a star system have to be to support life? It seems that it would be impossible in that ball of light near the core.

 

[SteveCNC]

I may have asked this before but how far out from the galactic core would a star system have to be to support life? It seems that it would be impossible in that ball of light near the core.

Yeah I have to agree , it would seem like any planet orbiting a star near the center of the galactic core would be getting enourmous energy from all around , not just it's parent star . although that opens up another possibility . At what distance from the galactic core would a planet get the right amount of energy to have liquid water without needing much from it's parent star ? entire solar systems would be eligable for liquid water but at what radiation cost .

 

[Jeters_Boy]

The stars near the center of the galactic core may not even be that close together. It might just seem that way in the photo. Any experts know for sure?

 

[bdewoody]

The stars near the center of the galactic core may not even be that close together. It might just seem that way in the photo. Any experts know for sure?

They are many times close than the stars near us are.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Out where we are there is about 0.122 star per cubic parsec. In the central parsec of the MW, in addition to the supermassive black hole, there are thousands of stars.

 

[eburacum45]

Out where we are there is about 0.122 star per cubic parsec. In the central parsec of the MW, in addition to the supermassive black hole, there are thousands of stars.

That is true, but the reason whey the centre of the Galaxy is thought to be uninhabitable is not because of the visible light from these tightly packed stars. After all, there are still a few stars per cubic light year even in the centre. The great problem comes when they explode as supernovae.

 

[CalliArcale]

At what distance from the galactic core would a planet get the right amount of energy to have liquid water without needing much from it's parent star ? entire solar systems would be eligable for liquid water but at what radiation cost .

Of course, when we think about radiation cost, we're just thinking about Earthlike life, which doesn't like ionizing radiation too much. But other life might make use of it. It's an energy source, after all.

 

[neilsox]

Only one of the 30 closest stars to Earth produces lots of dangerous ionizing radiation = Sirius and none have enough mass to super nova. 5000 light years from the center, average star spacing may be half what it is here, so the ionizing radiation may typically be survivable for more radiation tolerant species. Another problem at 5000 light years from the center is the 30 closest stars change perhaps ten times as fast, so evolution has to be fast to avoid death, before sentient beings develop. Offsetting this, more ionizing radiation means faster evolution = perhaps twice as fast. I'm guessing so please correct my errors. Neil

 

[bearack]

At what distance from the galactic core would a planet get the right amount of energy to have liquid water without needing much from it's parent star ? entire solar systems would be eligable for liquid water but at what radiation cost .

Of course, when we think about radiation cost, we're just thinking about Earthlike life, which doesn't like ionizing radiation too much. But other life might make use of it. It's an energy source, after all.

Sadly, we as humans can only assume what life can look like based upon what we currently can see. It will be exciting when science reaches levels that we can envision life in every facet possible.

We might realize that the a galaxy nuclei is more like a cornucopia of metropolitan societies.