Milky Way's black hole getting ready for snack

The black hole is known as Sgr A*. "Sgr" is the abbreviation for Sagittarius, the constellation near the center of the Milky Way. Most galaxies have a black hole at their center, some thousands of times bigger than this one. "While this one is 3-to-4 million times as big as our sun, it has been relatively quiet," according to Murray. "It's not getting fed very much." Contrary to their name, black holes can appear very bright. That's because gas orbiting them loses energy via friction, getting hotter and brighter as it spirals inward before falling into the black hole. Read more at: phys.org...

As the cloud approaches the black hole and begins to fall in to what Murray describes as "a gravity well" beginning next September, it will begin to shed energy, causing it to heat to incredibly high temperatures, visible to radio and X-ray telescopes on Earth as well as orbiting satellites such as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

To watch videos of different types of simulations done by Dr. P. Chris Fragile click here. Links on the bottom of the page.

Exciting year for astronomical phenomena. Two huge comet and this!

Sgr A* (centre) and two light echoes from a recent explosion (circled)

reply to post by ubeenhad


well now you seem to be pumped up today
it's the 3rd thread of yours i've found on the new topic firehose today

on topic

beginning next September

hmmm culminating in december?

Stay Tuned!

So there really will be a huge blast of energy from the core of the galaxy coinciding with a timeline set forth by the ancients? Huh. Because I thought all that was woo. [/sarcasm] Interestingly the galactic core is around 27000 light years away, so this already happened around 27000 years ago. At that time the only keen observers of astronomy likely to detect such a phenomenon would have been using "alternative" means of observation such as shamanic travel etc. Or aliens. Good find OP I love it.

It may have happened thousands of years ago but the effects might not hit us until the point we observe it so in a sense it's happening here.

Good find OP, I had no idea the gallactic nucleus was going to be active albeit briefly.