Bizarre Objects Discovered Near Our Galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole - "Really Strange Signature"

[Judi Lynn]

TOPICS: Astronomy Astrophysics UCLA University Of Illinois
By UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES JANUARY 15, 2020



Artist’s rendering shows G objects, with the reddish centers, orbiting the supermassive black hole. The black hole is represented as a dark sphere inside a white ring (above the middle of the rendering). Credit: Jack Ciurlo / 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 January 16, 2020. 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.

More:
https://scitechdaily.com/bizarre-objects-discovered-near-our-galaxys-supermassive-black-hole-really-strange-signature/

[Karadeniz]

1. Thanks!❤ Just wish I understood the process and implications better.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. How I love this stuff!

The Universe is more strange and more wonderful than we know, isn't it?

[Javaman]

3. "These objects look like gas and behave like stars"

doesn't that describe the orange asshole? lol