Cloud Could Soon Meet Its Demise in Milky Way's Black Hole

Scientific American/ By John Matson

All of us, not just astronomers, have an obvious fascination with what happens when matter gets sucked into the maw of a black hole. Usually, we've had to watch from the equivalent of partial-view bleacher seats as these cosmic garbage disposals do their thing in the Milky Way and in distant galaxies. For once, though, we may have procured primo seats behind the dugout.

In the next few years, the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's center could shred and consume a cloud of dust and gas with the mass of a small planet.

In about 18 months the newfound object will draw near the cosmic orifice at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Its orbit will carry it to within about 36 light-hours of the black hole, roughly twice the distance now separating NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft from the sun.

That's when things could get interesting. A group of astronomers reports in a study published online December 14 in Nature that the black hole ought to rip the gas cloud apart and pull it inward, producing a detectable surge in x-ray emissions as the gas compresses and heats up. Depending on how the cloud breaks up, the black hole may feed on it for years to come, significantly brightening the faint glow that emanates from just outside the edge of the black hole, its event horizon, and providing astrophysicists a unique view of black hole digestion. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)  More >>