glenc
31-12-2011, 08:19 AM
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111230.html
The monster at the center of our Galaxy is about to get fed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESQK98HbKBY). Recent observations (http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1151/) by the Very Large Telescopes (http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt.html) indicate that a cloud of gas will venture too close to the supermassive black hole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole) at the Galactic center. The gas cloud is being disrupted, stretched out, heated up, and some of it is expected to fall into the black hole (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993AmJPh..61..619N) over the next two years. In this artist's illustration (http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1151a/), what remains of the blob after a close pass to the black hole is shown in red and yellow, arching (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080427.html) out from the gravitational death trap to its right. The cloud's orbit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaNk31Hll0Y) is shown in red, while the orbits of central stars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE_uPcRV5hE) are shown in blue. The infalling nebula (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100905.html) is estimated to contain several times the mass of our Earth, while the central black hole (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070114.html), thought to correspond to the radio source Sagittarius A* (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgr_A*), contains about four million times the mass of our Sun. Once it falls in, nothing is expected to be heard (http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=21667) from the doomed gas ever again.
The monster at the center of our Galaxy is about to get fed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESQK98HbKBY). Recent observations (http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1151/) by the Very Large Telescopes (http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt.html) indicate that a cloud of gas will venture too close to the supermassive black hole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole) at the Galactic center. The gas cloud is being disrupted, stretched out, heated up, and some of it is expected to fall into the black hole (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993AmJPh..61..619N) over the next two years. In this artist's illustration (http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1151a/), what remains of the blob after a close pass to the black hole is shown in red and yellow, arching (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080427.html) out from the gravitational death trap to its right. The cloud's orbit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaNk31Hll0Y) is shown in red, while the orbits of central stars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE_uPcRV5hE) are shown in blue. The infalling nebula (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100905.html) is estimated to contain several times the mass of our Earth, while the central black hole (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070114.html), thought to correspond to the radio source Sagittarius A* (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgr_A*), contains about four million times the mass of our Sun. Once it falls in, nothing is expected to be heard (http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=21667) from the doomed gas ever again.