Starts With A Bang podcast #133 – The Milky Way’s center

our Twitter (X) feedView our Youtube channelView our Instagram feedView our Substack feedView our Spotify feed Today's Milky Way only forms stars slowly. Our galactic center, where the star-forming rate is highest, gives a unique window into our past. This multiwavelength view of the Milky Way's galactic center showcases the central molecular zone: the most active star-forming region in the entire galaxy.

In purple, hot, massive stars illuminate clouds of neutral hydrogen, with cold, dusty molecular gas at just 20-30 K illuminated in orange. The cyan and colored points arise from stars and from complex molecules, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. This whole region spans only around 2 degrees across. d John Bally (Univ of Colorado – Boulder), Farhad Yusef-Zadeh (Northwestern), Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey team; GLIMPSE II team Science and TechAstrophysicsAstronomyBlack HoleGalaxy Formation Here in our Universe, there are all sorts of places where stars are actively forming right now.

Our galaxy is going through a relatively quiet phase at present as far as star-formation is concerned, but that rate was much higher in the past: perhaps 30 (or more) times higher than what it is today. If we want to understand what our galaxy was like earlier on, we have two ways to go about it: look farther away, which has the disadvantage that we can’t really observe those places in such great detail, or look to the galactic center, which has the highest star-formation rate of anyplace in the Milky Way. The central molecular zone, in particular, is where the greatest amount of activity is: just two degrees across and half a degree high, centered on our supermassive black hole some 26,000 light-years away.

This region was obscure to humanity for nearly all of cosmic history: blocked by all of the intervening neutral matter, and by cosmic dust in particular, that optical light simply can’t penetrate. But in the 20th and 21st centuries, with the advent of multiwavelength astronomy, the secrets of the galactic center are finally being revealed as never before. I’m so pleased to get to speak with Prof.

Cara Battersby of the University of Connecticut for this wonderful episode of the Starts With A Bang podcast. From space telescopes to technosignatures and a whole lot more that you might not have considered, the central molecular zone, or CMZ for short, is one of the most scientifically interesting regions in all of known space. Come find out what makes it so fascinating on this all-new episode!

Science and TechAstrophysicsAstronomyBlack HoleGalaxy Formation This Big Think issue is a collection of stories about the American instinct to opt out, to pack up and go, to tell the boss, “I’d prefer not to.” Feed your curiosityUnlock every video, every lesson, and every insight Big Think has to offer. Join today and start learning without limits. Members 9 videos 41mins Using AI to Create Amazing Things “King” Willonius Hatcher Comedian and AI Storyteller Members 9 videos 50mins The Power of Mindful Awareness Jon Kabat-Zinn Founder, The Center for Mindfulness, and Author, “Meditation is Not What You Think”, and “Falling Awake” Members 8 videos 48mins Cultivating the Conditions for Innovation Martin Gonzalez Members 6 videos 26mins Transform Your Organization with AI Daphne Koller Founder and CEO of insitro.