Assigned ID: 96 ----- Submission 1 (Thu Jan 20 20:54:36 GMT 2005) ----- Phase I Proposal 96 (AR_GC_HST_proposal) successfully submitted. ----- Submission 3 (Fri Jan 21 20:42:31 GMT 2005) ----- Phase I Proposal 96 (AR_GC_HST_proposal) successfully submitted. ----- Submission 4 (Sat Jan 22 00:28:32 GMT 2005) ----- Phase I Proposal 96 (AR_GC_HST_proposal) successfully submitted. ----- Submission 5 (Sat Jan 22 00:57:51 GMT 2005) ----- The pace of discovery in Galactic center research has been extraordinary over the past few years, largely as a result of high angular resolution infrared observations. We propose to extract unique measurements from the HST archive that will augment high-resolution, ground-based studies of the Galactic center, with three primary objectives: 1) using the short-period (as low as 15 yr) orbits of the closest measurable stars near the black hole to determine the distance to the Galactic center, 2) addressing the problem of how massive, young stars can be present in the central parsec, where the strong tidal forces from the black hole are expected to counteract the gravitational collapse that leads to star formation, by measuring stellar accelerations and intensity variations and 3) characterizing the innermost portions of the accretion flow onto the black hole using the recently-detected, variable near-infrared emission that presumably arises from relativistic electrons in the inner accretion flow.

STELLAR POPULATIONS 12 69000 false 0.0 false false false false false SUPPORTED