Feeding black hole and center of Milky Way Galaxy

It appears that in a year a cloud of gas about the mass of three earths, will enter the supermassive black hole at the center of our Galaxy.

What’s the most highly anticipated cinematic event of the summer? For astronomers, that’s easy: The spectacle of a gas cloud hurtling toward a black hole, right in our cosmic backyard.

At the center of our galaxy lies a supermassive black hole by the name of Sagittarius A* (and yes, the * is actually part of its name). With an extraordinary mass of four million suns, this black hole wields a hefty gravitational pull, which it’s using to rip apart a gas cloud many times the size of our planet. The epic tug-of-war between black hole and matter will be the first astronomers have ever been able to observe, and since it’s right here in the Milky Way, they’ve got front-row seats.

The action is just getting started. The prey in the black hole’s sights is a gas cloud known as G2, which was first identified in 2011. As the black hole’s gravity draws the gas cloud closer, it spins and stretches the gas cloud like silly putty. The gases are speeding up and heating up as G2 gets closer. And recent analysis of observations from the Very Large Telescope show that the front end of the cloud has finally reached its closest approach to the black hole.

Source




The YouTube Video is about an hour long but well worth watching.

Any thoughts?

I've heard the size is dramatically larger than they anticipated, what an interesting event. G2 meets the event horizon.

reply to post by Kashai


Black holes are such amazing things...

I remember first hearing about them in Star Trek (one of the science fiction shows I love). Cmdr Decker tells Captain Kirk about V'ger and how it must have disappeared "into what they used to call a black hole". The idea that space is black, but could have a 'hole' was fascinating.

What gets me is that as you approach the event horizon, time slows relative to the rest of the universe, but for the observer at the event horizon, time is progressing normally.

"Fascinating, Mr Spock, fascinating!"

And as such, our fate is revealed.

reply to post by InTheLight


Not specifically and by that I mean if one understands black holes. A point is we have no idea what happens in the singularity.

reply to post by Kashai


azathoth is waking up!

peace.

dodol
reply to post by Kashai

 

azathoth is waking up!

peace.

edit on 21-11-2013 by dodol because: (no reason given)

In analysis H.P. Lovecraft had a Personality Disorder.

Any thought?

InTheLight
And as such, our fate is revealed.

To be honest in relation to what is known today, if you access a singularity.

You access infinity.

That is as much as we know.

Any thoughts?

reply to post by Kashai


imho, he looked 'crazy' or appeared to most people as an occultist because of the way he wrote.

He used gnostic-esque symbolism in his story, probably to make things interesting and hide important messages for certain type of readers (usually truth seekers).

peace.

From the source:

A composite image showing the movement of the gas cloud - in 2006 (blue), 2010 (green) and 2013 (red) – toward the black hole. Image courtesy of S. Gillessen/ESO

And just for a little perspective...Here is an image that somehow escaped my view until just now:



Detailed info and a larger image can be found here

reply to post by Kashai


As the scientists in the video mentioned, this period will be very exciting for those who have a degree of interest in this sort of thing, because this is a rare chance to see something play out, over a timescale which allows human beings to witness a process in deep space, most of which happen over centuries if not longer, from beginning to some sort of conclusion, within a human lifetime.

Not only that, but this event is going to teach us an awful lot about the most mysterious objects in the known universe. I for one am very excited about all this, and I only hope that the coverage by news agencies, documentary film makers, and scientific journals is appropriate to the gravity of this event (now tell me... Did you see what I did there?)!

*Da dum chish!* Saw what you did sir

A very very interesting event indeed. Apart from matter annihilation, matter accretion is probably be most efficient process that can generate x-rays and gamma of high luminosity. It will be extremely important to watch the centre on as many channels as we can throughout the whole event. We will probably get a good glimpse into processes occurring around active galactic nuclei far away from us and understand them in far greater detail.

I think however this process will basically begin and last our entire lives, as to the outside observer we would observe the gas cloud experiencing time dilation, to us it will take a great amount of time for it to fall in completely.

reply to post by ErosA433


The impression I got from the way the scientists were talking, is that this event could unfold very quickly indeed, hence the rush to prepare for the beginning, on the part of the deep space astronomy community.

If this thing was going to be some massive drawn out decades long event, I would be very surprised indeed, especially if the gas cloud, or disrupted star (whichever it turns out to be), takes its fastest possible, straight in approach, as suggested by one of the esteemed chaps in the video.

reply to post by TrueBrit


Oh yep, There will be a very rapid start, it will come in a burst. But the afterglow from material that spins around the black hole will be spinning around for many decades. Extremely exciting, every single second of data.

Kashai

InTheLight
And as such, our fate is revealed.

To be honest in relation to what is known today, if you access a singularity.

You access infinity.

That is as much as we know.

Any thoughts?

Not at the moment, but I'll muse about it.

Interesting event.
Though I kind of doubt there will be any gas disc circling.
IMO all the gas should get swallowed up.

reply to post by Angelic Resurrection



Due to frame dragging, there might form an accretion disk, it will be an interesting test of theory

reply to post by Angelic Resurrection


As I understand it matter entering a black hole first enters the accretion disk that surrounds it. This particular supermassive black hole is 1 million times more massive than out sun. While the gas in question has a mass equivalent to three earth sized planet.

As the images seem to offer we cannot see the object all those stars are orbiting. But once the gas enters the accretion disk, that aspect of the black hole will be visible, as well as a darker area at center, kind of like a solar eclipse. But since it is not a solar eclipse the resultant data will be offered for the first time in history.

With regards to other responses related to how long this will take for the Black Hole to absorb the gas in question?

In relative terms and compared to the size of the black hole the conditions will allow for an observation of the phenomenon Unlike observations of quasars.

In that case the black hole is feeding so intensely any chance of observing detail is impossible, while in this case it may very well be not. How long it will take for the black hole to absorb the material is an interesting question and would be great if we were able to observe this process for the next 10 years .

Any thought?