The Milky Way's monster black hole is destroying a mysterious dust cloud

The supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy is tearing apart a strange dust cloud, and astronomers are observing the spectacle  as it happens.

The dust cloud, called X7 and about as massive as 50 Earths, is orbiting our galaxy's supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. Over the past 20 years, astronomers have observed the cloud's journey using the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaiʻi, one of the world's most powerful telescopes. 

The observations have revealed that the filament has gradually stretched as it has wrapped itself around the black hole and is now as long as 3,000 sun-Earth distances. 

The observation campaign that began in 2002 provides new insights into the processes governed by powerful gravitational forces exerted by Sagittarius A* on its surroundings. 

Related: Sagittarius A* in pictures: The 1st photo of the Milky Way's monster black hole explained in images

Artist's rendering of what is anticipated to happen around the year 2036 when X7, an elongated filament of dust and gas, makes its closest approach to the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. (Image credit: W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko)

"This is a unique chance at observing the effects of the black hole's tidal forces at high-resolution, giving us insight into the physics of the galactic center's extreme environment," Anna Ciurlo, assistant researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, and lead author of the study, said in a statement

The astronomers observed X7 using the NIRC2 instrument on Keck that reveals the universe in the heat-emitting near-infrared light, the same wavelength that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope specializes in. Thanks to infrared light's ability to penetrate through dust, the astronomers were able to observe the filament's motions in great detail. They found that the filament currently takes about 170 years to orbit around the galactic center, and calculated that in 2036, the filament will make its closest approach to the black hole.  Shortly after that, the cloud will completely dissipate. 

"It's exciting to see significant changes of X7's shape and dynamics in such great detail over a relatively short time scale as the gravitational forces of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way influences this object," Randy Campbell, science operations lead at Keck Observatory and co-author of the study, said in the statement.

Images captured with Keck Observatory's NIRC2 instrument and adaptive optics showing X7's evolution between 2002-2021.  (Image credit: A. Ciurlo et al./UCLA GCOI/W. M. Keck Observatory)

After the filament's demise, its material will be swallowed up by the black hole. The process, according to the scientists, may produce some "fireworks" as the dust accelerates and heats up before crossing the event horizon

While the researchers have predicted the filament's future with quite a high level of reliability, they know much less about its past. They think the cloud may have formed when two stars merged and ejected a shell of dust and gas that emerged around them in the process. 

"One possibility is that X7's gas and dust were ejected at the moment when two stars merged," Ciurlo said. "In this process, the merged star is hidden inside a shell of dust and gas and the ejected gas perhaps produced X7-like objects."

X7 is one of a multitude of filaments that exist in the Milky Way's galactic center. These filaments, called the G objects, orbit extremely fast around the vicinity of the black hole, at speeds of up to 490 miles per second (790 kilometers per second). Insights gathered from X7 may therefore help astronomers predict the lives of its counterparts. 

Since X7 still has more than a decade of life ahead of it, astronomers will continue monitoring its journey as it spirals to its ultimate death. 

The study was published on Wednesday (Feb. 22) in the Astrophysical Journal. 

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Tereza Pultarova
Senior Writer

Tereza is a London-based science and technology journalist, aspiring fiction writer and amateur gymnast. Originally from Prague, the Czech Republic, she spent the first seven years of her career working as a reporter, script-writer and presenter for various TV programmes of the Czech Public Service Television. She later took a career break to pursue further education and added a Master's in Science from the International Space University, France, to her Bachelor's in Journalism and Master's in Cultural Anthropology from Prague's Charles University. She worked as a reporter at the Engineering and Technology magazine, freelanced for a range of publications including Live Science, Space.com, Professional Engineering, Via Satellite and Space News and served as a maternity cover science editor at the European Space Agency.

  • mbee1
    Admin said:
    Astronomers are observing the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy tearing apart a strange dust cloud in real time.

    The Milky Way's monster black hole is destroying a mysterious dust cloud : Read more
    Why do you folks in the news have to lie and distort all the time.? Is it nobody reads your stuff unless you do that? There is no mysterious dust cloud. I bet you can get its composition from the light you get from it as if falls into the black hole. Space is filled with a lot of nonluminous stuff, this is simply one big enough to notice as it falls into the black hole. Plenty of other stuff is to small to notice.
    Reply
  • Doordenker-2
    The 2012 prediction by the Maya civilization may be a mere 24 years overdue.
    Reply
  • magnoflux
    Using gravity attraction only is not sufficient to predict the clouds future. The cloud is being spun around the blackhole by the magnetic hub force at centre of our milky way galaxy in Sag A* by a magnoflux spin force.
    It will be interesting to see how the magnon spin force which is 5 times stronger than gravity G and the electrostatic force 25 times stronger will affect the clouds orbit.
    Reply
  • bolide
    mbee1 said:
    Why do you folks in the news have to lie and distort all the time.? Is it nobody reads your stuff unless you do that? There is no mysterious dust cloud. I bet you can get its composition from the light you get from it as if falls into the black hole. Space is filled with a lot of nonluminous stuff, this is simply one big enough to notice as it falls into the black hole. Plenty of other stuff is to small to notice.
    You acknowledge that it is there, yet you say "There is no mysterious dust cloud." So what is it then?
    Reply