MilkWay's BlackHole to Eat Gas Cloud in 2013

[astronobob]

A relly of mine was asking & mentioned this article to watch, the event sounds genuine, though Im skeptical about world class astronomers using the VLT watching it in real time later in 2013, thinking such an event would take 10's, 100's or even 1,000's of yrs ? ?
Anyway, an interesting event none the less , ,

http://www.space.com/16332-milky-way-black-hole-eats-gas-cloud-coming-2013-video.html

[churto]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gas-cloud-hurtling-toward-milky-ways-black-hole-may-harbor-young-star

"Regardless of the cloud’s origin, it could take decades for the whole of it to plunge into the black hole. Material could start falling onto a swirling accretion disk surrounding the black hole by the end of 2013 and continue for 20–40 years"

Did that answer your question?

[astronobob]

Thanx for confirming gestimates & feedback Andrew. The whole event will no doubt be a gaint learning curve for astro analyzations : )

[Suzy]

That was a really interesting read, thanks Andrew :thumbsup:.
I heard about this last year though I think the documentary I watched was a few years old. I've been keen to hear some news on it.

And thanks Bob for bringing the news topic up :D.

[astronobob]

Thanx much Andrew & Suzy :thumbsup:

Motion of this cloud is really traveling in this event, so stretched that its front part has passed the closest point and is travelling away at more than 10 million km/h, whilst the tail is still falling towards it !

Some very interesting facts/stats in this link :

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1332/#.UfMAb4QSkD0.facebook