Does the center of the galaxy glow?

If it refers to the nuclear ball, the central area of ​​the Milky Way, it is luminous and emits very strong light. The flat disk of the Milky Way is called the silver disk, which is composed of a thin disk and a thicker but lower-density thick disk. The nuclear ball is a raised structure in the center of the silver disk.

The central part of the bulge is called the silver core, where there is a dense cluster of stars. In other words, the light is produced by stars. In fact, the luminosity of the nuclear ball accounts for about 15% of the luminosity of the entire Milky Way.

Unfortunately, this light cannot be seen with the naked eye, because looking from the earth to the center of the Milky Way, our vision will be blocked by a large amount of interstellar gas and dust. These gases and dust have a strong extinction effect on visible light radiation and ultraviolet radiation from the center of the Milky Way, and the optical extinction reaches “30 magnitude.”

Therefore, for us who live in a corner of the Milky Way, the center of the Milky Way will always be dark in the optical band.

From the perspective of the galactic center, the center of the Milky Way is a dense radio source SgrA* (Sagittarius A*), and we believe this is actually a supermassive black hole with a mass of about 10 to the 6th power. Common sense tells us that black holes do not emit light. But the surroundings of the black hole are luminous. There is an accretion disk around the black hole, and there is strong radiation in the accretion disk.

Related studies have shown that there are strong jets around SgrA*, and the accretion disk and jets together produce radiation in the radio band and X-band, and at the same time produce bright light in the visible light band (not visible to the naked eye because of the extinction mentioned above. effect).

To sum up, the “Gyrocentric” does not emit light, but its surroundings and the “central area of ​​the Milky Way” emit strong light, which can be invisible to our naked eyes due to various obstructions.