About our Galaxy
Tuesday, November 1st, 2005Basic facts:
-
In the center of the Milky Way there seems to be a black hole, with a mass about
: M~106Msun -
In pacsecs (pc = 3.26 lightyear, kpc=1000pc) the central bulge is a few kpc in radius,
and the disk is at least 15kpc, the Sun is about 8 kpc from the center. -
The density n of stars in the disk is given by a scale length hR and R
the distance from the center is given by: n(R)∝ e-R/hR hR is
in the range of 2-4 kpc -
The thin disk (as opposed to the thick disk, which is a more defuse disk wider then
the one we normally “see”, contains 95% of the disk stars. -
The Galaxy is rotation, stars in the disk orbit the center at about 200km s-1,
it takes the Sun about 250 Myr to orbit the entire galaxy. -
The total luminosity of the disk is about 15-20×109Lsun and
the mass is around 60 x 109 Msun. The Bulge L ≈ 5 x 109 Lsun and
a mass around 20 x 109 Msun
