Kinematics of Late-Type Stars in the Central 10 Parsecs of the Galaxy

霍尔、塞尔格伦和贝克林博士将在近红外波长进行观测，以表征位于银河系中心5帕秒半径内的晚类型恒星的运动和亮度。这将检验银河系中心存在大质量凝聚体的假设，并将提供独特的运动学数据，可用于我们对其他星系核的理解。我们银河系的中心提供了一个独特的机会，可以在小到百分之一秒的空间尺度上研究星系核，并获得对该区域内单个恒星的观测。对我们银河系核心的详细研究可能会对解释其他更高能量的星系核心至关重要。由于尘埃的严重遮挡，在可见光波段看不到银河系的中心。然而，它可以在红外和更长的波长下进行研究，而光谱仪器和阵列探测器的进步现在使近红外的详细研究成为可能。

Drs. Hall, Sellgren, and Becklin will make observations at near- infrared wavelengths in order to characterize the motions and the brightness of the population of late type stars located within a 5 parsec radius of the Galactic Center. This will test the hypothesis of the existence of a massive condensed object at the Galactic Center, and it will provide unique kinematic data which can be applied to our understanding of the nuclei of other galaxies. The center of our Galaxy provides a unique opportunity to study a galactic nucleus at spatial scales as small as a few hundredths of a parsec and to obtain observations of individual stars within the region. Detailed studies of the nucleus of our own Galaxy may prove vitally important in the interpretation of other, more energetic galactic nuclei. Because of heavy obscuration by dust, the center of the Galaxy is not observable at visible wavelengths. It can be studied, however, at infrared and longer wavelengths, and advances in spectroscopic instrumentation and array detectors now make possible detailed studies in the near infrared.