360° View of the Galactic Center (INTERACTIVE)
Have you ever wished you could see further into the Milky Way? How about the very center? Thanks to the folks at Chandra, this 360° video compiles data from a number of telescopes to allow you to immerse yourself in the center of our galaxy. According to the video’s description:
From the vantage point of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, Sgr A*, the viewer can see about 25 Wolf-Rayet stars (white, twinkling objects) as they continuously eject stellar winds (black to red to yellow color scale). These winds collide with each other, and then some of this material (yellow blobs) spirals towards Sgr A*. The movie shows two simulations, each of which start around 350 years in the past and span 500 years. The first simulation shows Sgr A* in a calm state, while the second contains a more violent Sgr A* that is expelling its own material, thereby turning off the accretion of clumped material (yellow blobs) that is so prominent in the first portion.
