The data also revealed that in orbit around the Galactic Nucleus, the earth travels 7 km/s or 16,000 mph higher.
The results don't indicate that Earth is more at risk from the black hole but show the galaxy's best modeling.
If you consider that Terrestrial affairs are not going well already, it also turns out that our world is much smaller than we thought to the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy. New observation results allowed researchers to strengthen the Milky Way Galaxy modeling, showing that Earth is traveling 7 km/s (~16,000 mph) faster and is 2,000 light-years closer to the Sagittarius A* supermassive black hole.
Fifteen years of data obtained by the Japanese radio astronomy project VERA, which is a series of acronyms standing for VLBI Radio Astrometry Discovery, provided the most detailed results (with "VLBI" meaning Very Long Baseline Interferometry). The project began in 2000 and has the purpose of imaging the three-dimensional velocity and spatial configurations of the Milky Way.
VERA uses interferometry to collect and integrate knowledge from radio telescopes in the Japanese archipelago. This technique helps the project to get an impressive resolution, as good as a 2300 km diameter telescope. At this exact resolution of 10 micro-arcseconds, the calculation is so precise that if it were somehow left on the surface of the Moon, it would be sharp enough to pick out a U.S. penny.
The latest map says this core is approximately 25,800 light-years away from Earth, along with the supermassive black hole it contains. Notably, this is closer than the distance of 27,700 light-years set by the International Astronomical Union as the official value in 1985.
The velocity part of the new map also distinguished the planet's velocity, indicating that it is moving in its orbit around the Galactic Center at 227 km/s. "That is 7 km/s faster than the 220 km/s previously "official" pace. #blackhole #solarsystem #earth
VERA next turns its focus to other objects, particularly those near to the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center.
