From The University of Köln [Universität zu Köln](DE)
6.14.24
Media Contact:
Dr Florian Peißker
Institute for Astrophysics
+49 221 470 7791
peissker@ph1.uni-koeln.de
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Jan Voelkel
+49 221 470 2356
j.voelkel@verw.uni-koeln.de
Young stellar objects travel around the black hole in the centre of our galaxy at a speed of over a thousand kilometres per second. U Köln
Observational astronomy shows that the newly discovered young stellar objects (YSOs) in the immediate vicinity of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* located in the centre of our galaxy behave differently than expected. They describe similar orbits to already known young evolved stars and are arranged in a particular pattern around the supermassive black hole. Studies show that Sgr A* causes the stellar objects to adopt certain formations. The study is published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. It involved researchers from the University of Cologne, Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic), Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic), the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn.
Around thirty years ago highly dynamic stars were discovered in the immediate vicinity of the supermassive black hole Sgr A* at the centre of the Milky Way. These stars, also known as S stars, circumnavigate the supermassive black hole with speeds of several thousand kilometres per hour in a few years.
The stars are surprisingly young and their presence is puzzling, as according to popular theories one would expect only old and dim stars in the immediate vicinity of the supermassive black hole.
The technological advancement that has taken place in recent decades and the long periods of observing the galactic centre using a modern telescope [un-credited, but from the science paper the ESO VLT] currently give rise to further questions.
•KUEYEN (UT2; The Moon ),
•MELIPAL (UT3; The Southern Cross ), and
•YEPUN (UT4; Venus – as evening star) [Click on image for a readable version].
In 2012, for example, an object was discovered which the researchers assumed to be a cloud of gas that was ‘sucked up’ by the supermassive black hole. While this theory has not been confirmed, it has been unclear for a long time exactly what kind of object this might be. In recent years, mounting evidence has shown that it could be a YSO surrounded by a dusty cloud.
In addition to the S stars, researchers have currently been conducting research on a dozen objects in the direct vicinity of the supermassive black hole which also have very similar properties. They found out that the objects were even significantly younger than the already known high-speed stars. “Interestingly, these YSOs exhibit the same behaviour as S stars. This means that the YSOs circumnavigate the supermassive black hole with speeds of several thousand kilometres per hour in a few years,” explained Dr Florian Peißker from the University of Cologne’s Institute for Astrophysics and corresponding author of the study. “The S stars were found to be surprisingly young. According to conventional theories, the additional presence of a stellar kindergarten composed of YSOs is completely unexpected,” added Dr Peißker.
Furthermore, this group of high-velocity objects consisting of YSOs and S stars appears to resemble a chaotic swarm of bees at first glance. However, in the same way a swarm of bees has a pattern and regular formations, so do the YSOs and the S stars. In this way the researchers were able to demonstrate that YSOs as well as S stars are arranged in a specific, organized way within three-dimensional space. “This means that there are specific preferred star constellations. The distribution of both star variations resembles a disc which gives the impression that the supermassive black hole forces the stars to assume an organized orbit,” according to Peißker.
See the full article here.
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The University of Köln [Universität zu Köln](DE) is a university in Köln (DE). It was the sixth university to be established in Central Europe and, although it closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919, it is now one of the largest universities in Germany with more than 48,000 students. The University of Köln is a German Excellence University.
The University of Köln was established in 1388 as the fourth university in the Holy Roman Empire, after the Charles University of Prague (1348), the University of Vienna (1365) and the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (1386). The charter was signed by Pope Urban VI. The university began teaching on 6 January 1389.
In 1798, the university was abolished by the French, who had invaded Köln in 1794, because under the new French constitution, many universities were abolished all over France. The last rector Ferdinand Franz Wallraf was able to preserve the university’s Great Seal, now once more in use.
In 1919, the Prussian government endorsed a decision by the Köln City Council to re-establish the university. This was considered to be a replacement for the loss of the University of Strasbourg on the west bank of the Rhine, which contemporaneously reverted to France with the rest of Alsace. On 29 May 1919, the Köln Mayor Konrad Adenauer signed the charter of the modern university.
At that point, the new university was located in Neustadt-Süd, but relocated to its current campus in Lindenthal on 2 November 1934. The old premises are now being used for the Köln University of Applied Sciences.
Initially, the university was composed of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences (successor to the Institutes of Commerce and of Communal and Social Administration) and the Faculty of Medicine (successor to the Academy of Medicine). In 1920, the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Arts were added, from which latter the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences was split off in 1955 to form a separate Faculty. In 1980, the two Köln departments of the Rhineland School of Education were attached to the university as the Faculties of Education and of Special Education. In 1988, the university became a founding member of the Community of European Management Schools and International Companies (CEMS), today’s Global Alliance in Management Education.
The University is a leader in the area of economics and is regularly placed in top positions for law and business, both for national and international rankings.
University of Köln is member of the association German U15 e.V. which is a coalition of fifteen major research-intensive and leading medical universities in Germany with a full disciplinary spectrum, excluding any defining engineering sciences.
CWTS Leiden ranking, ranks Köln very high among top universities in Germany for medicine studies. According to Shanghai ranking, the University of Köln is very highly ranked in Germany.
Especially the faculties of law and economics are renowned and leading in Germany. Leading researches are affiliated to Köln: e.g. Angelika Nußberger, Thomas von Danwitz, Claus Kreß, Martin Henssler, Ulrich Preis, Heinz-Peter Mansel.
7 people associated with the university have won the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Professorship prize.
Apart from these, affiliated persons with the university have won various awards including Max Planck Research Award, Köln Innovation Prize (City of Köln), Postbank Finance Award (Deutsche Postbank), Ernst Jung Prize in Medicine (Jung Foundation), SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, Wilhelm Vaillant Prize (Wilhlem Vaillant Foundation), Heinz Maier Leibnitz Prize (DFG), Alfried Krupp Prize for the Advancement of Young Professors, Innovation Prize of the State of NRW, Karl Arnold Prize (North Rhine-Westphalia Academy of Sciences and Arts) and many more.
Partner universities
The University of Köln maintains twenty official partnerships with universities from ten countries. Of these, the partnerships with Clermont-Ferrand I and The Pennsylvania State University are the oldest partnerships. In addition, Köln has further cooperations with more than 260 other universities.
Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil (since 1990)
Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia, Bulgaria (since 1985)
Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China (since 2005)
Fudan University, Shanghai, China (since 2010)
Université d’Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand I, France (since 1962)
Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand II, France (since 1980)
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece (since 1992)
National Law School of India University, Bangalore, India
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan (since 1987)
Keio University, Tokyo, Japan (since 1981)
University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland (since 2003)
University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Bangladesh
Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland (since 1990)
Maxim Gorky Literature Institute, Moscow, Russia
Volgograd State University, Russia (since 1993)
University of Seville, Spain
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic (since 1999)
Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey (since 2003)
University of California-Berkeley, School of Law
Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA. (since 2001)
Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA. (since 1961)
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