UCLA Galactic Center Group

Latest Results

The Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics System at the W. M. Keck Observatory takes spectacular images of the Galactic Center. More details...

Caption: Narrow-field image of the Galactic Center at 3.8 microns (L prime) obtained with the Keck Laser Guide Star System on July 26, 2004 versus an image using the Keck Natural Guide Star System. Strehl ratio in the LGS image was measured at 75%, double the previous performance at this wavelength. A Strehl ratio of 100% represents a perfect, fully-corrected image. The resolution is 82 milliarcseconds, the equivalent of being able to distinguish a pair of headlights in New York while standing in Los Angeles.

For additional results, see the Publications section.

What lies at the center of the Milky Way?

The UCLA Galactic Center Group is part of the UCLA Physics and Astronomy department and is dedicated to researching the innermost regions of the Milky Way. High angular resolution infrared observations taken with the Keck telescopes are used to study this extreme environment including the proposed super massive black hole believed to lie at the exact center of our Galaxy.

Beginners Guide: For a beginner's guide to the galactic center, see Angelle Tanner's Journey to the Center of the Galaxy.
Images and Animations: If you are looking for interesting Galactic Center images or movies, try the Pictures section.
People: To find out more about the people who make up the UCLA Galactic Center Group, try the People section.

Caption: The orbits of stars within the central 1.0 X 1.0 arcseconds of our Galaxy. In the background, the central portion of a diffraction-limited image taken in 2004 is displayed. While every star in this image has been seen to move over the past 9 years, estimates of orbital parameters are only possible for the seven stars that have had significant curvature detected. The annual average positions for these seven stars are plotted as colored dots, which have increasing color saturation with time. Also plotted are the best fitting simultaneous orbital solutions. These orbits provide the best evidence yet for a supermassive black hole, which has a mass of 3.7 million times the mass of the Sun. More details...

For more images of the Galactic Center, try the Pictures section.

In the News

Aug 20, 2007 - Publication: A Constant Spectral Index for Sagittarius A* during Infrared/X-Ray Intensity Variations
Dec 20, 2005 - Press Release Astronomers Use Laser to Take Clearest Images of the Center of the Milky
Dec, 2005 - Publication: The First Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics Observations of the Galactic Center: Sgr A*'s Infrared Color and the Extended Red Emission in its Vicinity
Sep 4, 2003 - Press Release: UCLA Astronomers Detect Plasma at Black Hole
More news links

The Research section describes the ongoing galactic center research at UCLA
This page is sponsored by Dr. Andrea Ghez. A list of all contributors can be found in the People section.

Mini Spiral	K-band Keck Image