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Latest Results

New high-precision measurements of the properties of our Galaxy's supermassive black hole. More details...

Caption: Left: Astrometric orbit for the central arcsecond star S0-2, assuming a 13-parameter model, which includes the black hole's mass, distance, location in the plane of the sky, and three-dimensional velocity as free parameters. Right: Correlation of the estimated black hole's mass and distance. The density of solutions from Monte Carlo simulations are shown as a color image, with contours marking the 68%, 95%, and 99.7% confidence limits.

For additional results, see the Publications section.

Latest Results

New individual stellar orbits of the young, massive stars coherently rotating about the supermassive black hole. More details...

Caption: Positions and proper motion vectors of the young stars. Candidate disk members are shown in red and nondisk members are shown in blue overplotted on an LGSAO image in gray scale. The names of the stars in the primary sample are shown in the left panel and the complete extended sample is shown in a zoomed-out view in the right panel.

For additional results, see the Publications section.

Latest Results

A near-infrared variability study of the Galactic black hole: A red noise source with no detected periodicity. More details...

Caption: Left: K' image from 2006 May 3 of the central 0.5'' around Sgr A* in logarithmic scale. Right: Light curve of Sgr * (black) and comparison source S0-2 (gray) at L' on 2005 July 28. The bottom figure shows the periodograms of Sgr A* on the same night. Click image for more details.

For additional results, see the Publications 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 2008 is displayed. While every star in this image has been seen to move over the past 13 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 4.1 million times the mass of the Sun. More details...

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

In the News
  • March, 2009 - White Paper: The Galactic Center: A Laboratory for Fundamental Astrophysics and Galactic Nuclei
  • Dec 20, 2008 - Publication: Measuring Distance and Properties of the Milky Way's Central Supermassive Black Hole with Stellar Orbits
  • Dec 11, 2008 - News Article: Closing in on the Milky Way's Central Black Hole
  • 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
  • More news links
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.

  • 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
Last updated: Wednesday, 08-Apr-2009 09:53:16 PDT.
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