Velvet Oblivion
Part 2
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| Sagittarius A-Star |
From previous articles that I've read from earthsky I've already learned that in the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole named Sagittarius A-star. Astronomers have been observing "a mysterious gas cloud with three times Earth’s mass is spiraling toward the supermassive black hole at the core of our Milky Way galaxy." In a few months, the massive gas cloud known as G2 is expected to reach the center and be pulled into Sagittarius A-star by its gravitational force. Scientists are waiting to observe what exactly will happen when G2 is pulled into the black hole by analyzing photos of X-rays the gas cloud will give off when this occurs. A few predictions have been stated on the gas cloud phenomenon such as, "it’ll glow in the X-ray band for years to come as the black hole slowly swallows the cloud," or "G2 might also be surrounding an old star. If that’s the case, the display would be less spectacular as Sagittarius A* slurped from the cloud while the star slipped by, dense enough to escape its grasp." I'll probably be watching over spring term for G2's updated status! It'll be interesting to see if it turns out to contain a star.
I learned quite a lot through Earthsky.org including more in depth facts about our galaxy. I've definitely been wondering about the event horizon for awhile, which I learned from another source earlier in my own independent research that it's the point in which light travels over a black hole and the moment just before it swallows the light is called the event horizon. It's known as "the point of no return." So it was interesting to me to read about the behavior of gas as it gets sucked into a black hole. I never new that the effect of that would cause a glow from the x-ray waves for years after the event. Usually with light it consumes it pretty damn quickly.
G2 will eventually be sucked into the center of the galaxy forever, never to return to our dimension. This lead me to my next research question: Will earth eventually be sucked into Sagittarius A-star? Does our galaxy have a set amount of life left like humans do? What happens when a galaxy dies, if it can.
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