Go Back   IceInSpace > General Astronomy > Astronomy and Amateur Science

Reply
 
Thread Tools Rate Thread
  #1  
Old 16-01-2020, 02:19 PM
gary
Registered User

gary is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Mt. Kuring-Gai
Posts: 5,914
Astronomers discover class of strange objects near our galaxy’s enormous black hole

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuart Wolpert | January 15, 2020, UCLA
Astronomers from UCLA’s Galactic Center Orbits Initiative have discovered a new class of bizarre objects at the center of our galaxy, not far from the supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*. They published their research in the Jan. 16 issue of the journal Nature.

“These objects look like gas and behave like stars,” said co-author Andrea Ghez, UCLA’s Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Professor of Astrophysics and director of the UCLA Galactic Center Group.

The new objects look compact most of the time and stretch out when their orbits bring them closest to the black hole. Their orbits range from about 100 to 1,000 years, said lead author Anna Ciurlo, a UCLA postdoctoral researcher.

Ghez’s research group identified an unusual object at the center of our galaxy in 2005, which was later named G1. In 2012, astronomers in Germany made a puzzling discovery of a bizarre object named G2 in the center of the Milky Way that made a close approach to the supermassive black hole in 2014. Ghez and her research team believe that G2 is most likely two stars that had been orbiting the black hole in tandem and merged into an extremely large star, cloaked in unusually thick gas and dust.

“At the time of closest approach, G2 had a really strange signature,” Ghez said. “We had seen it before, but it didn’t look too peculiar until it got close to the black hole and became elongated, and much of its gas was torn apart. It went from being a pretty innocuous object when it was far from the black hole to one that was really stretched out and distorted at its closest approach and lost its outer shell, and now it’s getting more compact again.”

“One of the things that has gotten everyone excited about the G objects is that the stuff that gets pulled off of them by tidal forces as they sweep by the central black hole must inevitably fall into the black hole,” said co-author Mark Morris, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy. “When that happens, it might be able to produce an impressive fireworks show since the material eaten by the black hole will heat up and emit copious radiation before it disappears across the event horizon.”
Full press release here with additional detail :-
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/as...axy-black-hole

4 minute video about Ghenz's research :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdo0...ature=youtu.be

Animation below of the orbits of the G objects, together with the orbits of stars near the supermassive black hole :-
https://youtu.be/1PTNpTy2bY0
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 20-01-2020, 11:12 PM
xelasnave's Avatar
xelasnave
Gravity does not Suck

xelasnave is offline
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Tabulam
Posts: 16,866
All I can think is the stretching somehow renders them less gravitationally suseptable to being sucked all the way into the black hole..
At least my math suggests that is probable...

Thanks Gary for the info..saw it someplace but only when it is here does one really take notice.

Last edited by xelasnave; 21-01-2020 at 11:21 AM.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +10. The time is now 02:36 AM.

Powered by vBulletin Version 3.8.7 | Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Advertisement
Bintel
Advertisement
Testar
Advertisement