Scientists are watching a gas cloud get sucked through a giant black hole in the center of our galaxy, and in real time.
The cloud has already reached its closest point to the black hole and has stretched out considerably, a Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics press release reported.
The gas reverses its velocity as it passes the black hole, which causes the cloud to appear red-shifted as opposed to blue-shifted
"The ionized gas at the head of the cloud is now stretched over more than 150 light-hours (about 160 billion kilometres) around the pericentre of the orbit around the black hole, with the closest approach being about 25 light-hours (or a bit more than 25 billion kilometers)," Stefan Gillessen from MPE, the leader of the research team, said. "The pericentre approach however is not a singular event but rather a process that will be stretching over a period of at least one year."
The team reanalyzed older data to give a better measurement of the cloud's orbit. The fastest areas move with a red-shifted velocity, the head has a lower velocity, and the tail moves at considerably slower pace.
"But the most exciting detection is gas emission with a blue-shifted velocity of 3000 km/s along the orbit at a position after pericentre," Gillessen said. "This means that part of the cloud have already passed the closest approach to the black hole. This could also affect our models of the gas cloud orbit, as the brightest part of the head structure might not be comparable any longer to the head in 2012."
The observations have also helped researchers determine the origin of the gas cloud. One theory is the cloud was caused by a collision between "stellar winds and the interstellar medium." It could also be from a "jet emerging from the galactic center to a faint star that loses increasing amounts of gas."
WHAT IT WOULD LOOK LIKE TO GET SUCKED INTO A BLACK HOLE:
