Mass of Sagittarius A* from SO-2 (S2) Star's Orbital Parameters
Sagittarius A* is a suspected supermassive black hole located at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. It is located approximately 26,000 light-years from Earth. There are a number of stars orbiting Sagittarius A* and a few have a remarkably short orbital periods. One of the stars has a period of 15.6 years and it is known as SO-2 (also S-2). The semi-major axis and period of SO-2 about Sagittarius A*are the orbital parameters used to calculate the mass of Sagittarius A* (also known as Sgr A*). The mass of Sgr A* is found to be the equivalent of about 4 million Suns. Andrew R. Ochadlick Jr. received a Ph.D. in Physics from the State University of New York at Albany (SUNYA) and is a career physicist with university, government and industry R&D experience and teaching experience at the undergraduate and graduate level. He may be reached at [email protected] .
