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In the last few years, it has become a well established fact that at
the center of our galaxy there is a supermassive object with a mass of about 4 million solar masses. This is clearly proven by the orbits of stars very close to the galactic center( see for instance http://www.mpe.mpg.de/www-ir/GC/ ). I just wonder how the deflection of light by the gravitational field of Sagittarius A* affects the apparent position of these stars. The point is that with a mass of 4*10^6 solar masses and a distance of about 10 light days (which corresponds to a distance of 2.6*10^11 km or 3.7*10^5 solar radii) the usual deflection formula would result in a deflection 4*10^6/ 3.7*10^5 /2 = 5 times larger than the gravitational deflection near the sun's limb, i.e. about 9" (arcseconds) (I added the additional factor 1/2 in the ratio because of the fact that the light is produced within the gravitational field and does not come from outside like for the solar case). Since 10 light days at a distance of 26,000 light years corresponds to an angle of 0.2" (see also http://www.astrophysicsspectator.com...tralStars.html ), this means that, according to GR, we should see the stars actually at a distance 45 times further from the galactic centre than they appear to be. Does anybody have an explanation for the absence of any gravitational deflection of this magnitude here? Thomas |
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