| Line | This passage is excerpted from material published |
| in 1997. | |
| Is there a massive black hole at the center of our | |
| galaxy, the Milky Way? The evidence is inconclusive. | |
| (5) | Just as the Sun’s mass can be determined, given |
| knowledge of other variables, by the velocity at | |
| which its planets orbit, the mass at the center of the | |
| Milky Way can be revealed by the velocities of stars | |
| and gas orbiting the galactic center. This dynamical | |
| (10) | evidence, based on recently confirmed assumptions |
| about the stars’ velocities, argues for an extremely | |
| compact object with a mass two to three million | |
| times the mass of our Sun. Although according to | |
| current theory this makes the mass at the center | |
| (15) | of the galaxy too dense to be anything but a black |
| hole, the relative lack of energy radiating from the | |
| galactic center presents a serious problem. A black | |
| hole’s gravity attracts surrounding matter, which | |
| swirls around the black hole, emitting some energy | |
| (20) | as it is engulfed. Scientists believe that the amount of |
| energy that escapes the black hole should be about | |
| 10 percent of the matter’s rest energy (the energy | |
| equivalent of its mass according to the equation | |
| E=mc2). But when the energy coming from the | |
| (25) | galactic center is compared to widely held predictions |
| based on how much matter should be falling into a | |
| theoretical central black hole, there is a discrepancy | |
| by a factor of a few thousand. |
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