Observers are hoping to watch what happens this March, when a distended object called G2 is predicted to come dangerously close to Sagittarius A*. The object, either a gas cloud or a star with a distended gaseous envelope, will be torn apart by the black hole’s gravitational tidal forces. If it is gas, the resulting fireworks could be spectacular. But if G2 is a star, the chances of fireworks will be slimmer: it will keep a firmer grip on the gas and less material will fall in, says Andrea Ghez, an astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles (see Nature 495, 296–298; 2013).
Sagittarius A* is the black hole associated with our galaxy.
Read the complete article published at Scientific American:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ers&page=3
Here is a picture of a black hole: Image: Wikimedia Commons/NASA/JPL-Caltech
