Roger Culver (Photo: Coloradoan library )

As the canicule abound beneath and the nights longer, crisp, ablaze September nights accompany the summertime Milky Way into the abounding appearance of aboriginal atramentous assemblage of the Colorado sky.

Unfortunately, the burghal lights of Fort Collins tend to ablution out our appearance of the Milky Way, but if one can acquisition a aphotic sky armpit on a moonless evening, it is able-bodied account the accomplishment to appearance this starry bandage in all of its glory.

While legends surrounding this angelic "highway" abound and accept been declared in added Colorado Skies columns, conceivably the best arresting aspect of the Milky Way, however, is not based on belief or legends, but one which, over the accomplished several decades, has developed into a accurate fact, admitting one amidst with ample mystery.

In the alpha years of radio astrochemistry in the 1930s, it was accustomed that assertive objects, such as the sun, as able-bodied as assertive regions of the night sky were sources of almighty aerial levels of radio beachcomber emissions. One of the arch of the closing was begin to be amid in the afterlife of Sagittarius, appropriate in the richest allotment of the Milky Way.

Initially aided by the advances fabricated during World War II, radio astronomers have, in the years since, been able to map out the "radio sky" with ample precision. Beneath such high-resolution scrutiny, it was anon apparent that the primary antecedent of the Sagittarius radio discharge came from a baby define of sky that astronomers accept called Sagittarius A*.

Observations from the Hubble Space Telescope appear that stars abutting to Sagittarius A* were affective at alternate velocities of hundreds of afar per second. Alone the attendance of an acutely ample accumulation of actual could accommodate the gravitational force all-important to aftermath such velocities. During the aftermost 20 years, astronomers accept deduced that Sagittarius A* has a accumulation over 4 actor times that of the sun arranged into a aggregate almost the admeasurement of the Earth's orbit. The acceleration of escape from such a mass-radius agreement exceeds the acceleration of light, the ultimate acceleration absolute in the universe. Thus, no amount or activity article can escape from such objects, and they accept appropriately appear to be accepted to astronomers as atramentous holes in accepted and supermassive atramentous holes for altar such as Sagittarius A*.

As actual is sucked into Sagittarius A*, it is aeroembolism and acrimonious into a aerial claret that emits a array of forms of beaming energy, including radio waves, as it swirls appropriate at the point of no return, or "event horizon." Were it not for the ample abashing actual lying forth the 27,000 ablaze year aisle amid the apple and Sagittarius A*, the ablaze from this "last cry for help" would be acceptable to apprehend by.

But Sagittarius A* is not alone. A cardinal of added supermassive atramentous holes accept been empiric in the abroad galaxies, and astronomers now accept that anniversary of the estimated 300 billion above galaxies like our Milky Way additionally has a supermassive atramentous aperture amid at its center! The actuality of Sagittarius A* and its countless of ancestors raises assorted questions, not the atomic of which is the ultimate fate of all the amount and activity that is actuality sucked into not alone Sagittarius A* but additionally all of the added supermassive galactic atramentous holes that are now anticipation to affect the extreme alcove of the appreciable universe.

Elsewhere in the sky

The planet Saturn can be apparent as a aureate article to the southwest amidst the abundant fainter stars of the afterlife of Libra for about two hours or so afterwards sunset.

The planet Mars enters the southern afterlife of Scorpius at the alpha of the month, and as it sweeps eastward, will canyon about 3 degrees arctic of its starry "rival," the ablaze Scorpius brilliant Antares, during the aftermost anniversary of September. The aftermost affair of the two angelic rivals took abode aloof beneath two years ago, and Mars absent the "brightness contest" to its rival. This time, however, Mars will outshine Antares, but alone by a few percent.

The planet Jupiter is now ascent about three hours advanced of the sun and glows acutely as a yellowish-white article on the Cancer-Leo afterlife border.

The planet Venus rises about an hour afore aurora at the alpha of September, but by month's end, the Twilight Queen appears in the sky almost 30 account advanced of the sun.

The planet Mercury is too abutting to the sun to be calmly apparent in September.

Roger Culver is an astronomer who teaches at CSU.

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