{"id":9082,"date":"2023-02-25T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-25T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gustavopineda.com\/?p=9082"},"modified":"2023-02-25T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-25T10:30:00","slug":"black-hole-destroying-object-milky-way-galaxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gustavopineda.com\/?p=9082","title":{"rendered":"A black hole is destroying this object. Scientists are watching its last days."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Right now, in the center of our galaxy<\/a>, an enormous black hole<\/a> is stretching an object apart like it were taffy. <\/p>\n

And scientists currently have a rare view, and images, of this extreme cosmic event playing out. <\/p>\n

A thick cloud of gas and dust dubbed “X7” is rapidly approaching the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*<\/a>. Black holes harbor almost unimaginable gravity due to their extremely concentrated mass (if Earth were crushed into a black hole, it would be under an inch across), and astronomers have now watched X7 changing for two decades as it veers closer to its last years. The latest observations, published in The Astrophysical Journal<\/em><\/a>, reveal that X7 has been stretched trillions of miles<\/em>. It’s now 3,000 astronomical units in length. An astronomical unit is 93 million miles, or the distance between the sun and Earth. <\/p>\n

X7 doesn’t have much time left. The black hole’s gravitational power is relentless.<\/p>\n

“In the near future, it will pull X7 apart,” Anna Ciurlo, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the lead author of the research, told Mashable. “We’re lucky to observe it now.”<\/p>\n

\n SEE ALSO:<\/span>
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\n Black holes aren’t evil cosmic vacuum cleaners, and other misconceptions
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X7’s immense stretching demonstrates the cosmic influence of a black hole. The leading edge of the cloud is subject to more gravitational tugging than the tail, resulting in the long stretch. By 2036, X7 will swing to its closest point around Sagittarius A*, and soon after, dissolve. Then, the remnants will spiral around the black hole, heating up and releasing energy into space<\/a>. Some of this matter will inevitably fall into the black hole, never to escape. (Once an object passes a boundary on a black hole called the “event horizon,” there’s no way for anything to conceivably escape \u2014 that would mean moving faster than the speed of light.)<\/p>\n


\n “In the near, future it will pull X7 apart.”
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In the first graphic below<\/strong>, you can see X7 being progressively stretched between 2002 and 2021. Astronomers made the observations using the W. M. Keck Observatory atop Hawaii’s towering Mauna Kea, which is home to two of the largest telescopes in the world, at 10 meters, or nearly 33 feet, across. <\/p>\n

Below this graphic is an animation illustrating how X7 is being pulled apart and then destroyed as it approaches the supermassive black hole.<\/p>\n

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\n \"An<\/p><\/div>\n
\n The object X7 progressively stretched by the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*.<\/span>
\n Credit: A. Ciurlo et al. \/ UCLA GCOI \/ W. M. Keck Observatory<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Peering into the center of the galaxy<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It’s enormously difficult to observe an object like X7 traversing the center of our galaxy. The galactic center is packed with stars, gas, and dust, which obscures much activity. Yet Ciurlo and her team have been able to track X7 for four reasons:<\/p>\n