Gravitational Motion
In stellar dynamics, a massive body (star, black hole, etc.) can experience Brownian motion as it responds to gravitational forces from surrounding stars. The rms velocity of the massive object, of mass, is related to the rms velocity of the background stars by
where is the mass of the background stars. The gravitational force from the massive object causes nearby stars to move faster than they otherwise would, increasing both and . The Brownian velocity of Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, is predicted from this formula to be less than 1 km s−1.
Read more about this topic: Brownian Motion
Famous quotes containing the word motion:
“As I walked on the glacis I heard the sound of a bagpipe from the soldiers’ dwellings in the rock, and was further soothed and affected by the sight of a soldier’s cat walking up a cleated plank in a high loophole designed for mus-catry, as serene as Wisdom herself, and with a gracefully waving motion of her tail, as if her ways were ways of pleasantness and all her paths were peace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)