Astronomers discover a mysterious object being pulled into the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way

Astronomers discover a mysterious object being pulled into the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way

Astronomers have discovered an elongated object called "X7" that has been identified near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

The object was first detected in 2018, using data from the GRAVITY instrument on the Very Large Telescope in Chile.

X7 appeared to be a compact, dusty object about 1/100th of a parsec in size (about 10 times the distance between the Sun and the nearest star), and it was about 2.6 parsecs away from the supermassive black hole. It was moving in a highly elliptical orbit around the black hole with a period of about 11.5 years.

X7 location relative to the supermassive black hole
X7 location relative to the supermassive black hole

The origin and nature of X7 are not yet fully understood, but it has been suggested that it could be a clump of gas and dust tidally disrupted by the black hole's gravity, or it could be a protoplanet or a small star ejected from its original orbit and captured by the black hole's gravity. 

Further observations and studies will be needed to determine the true nature of X7 and its relationship to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

The new study, published in The Astrophysical Journal, suggests that it could be a dust cloud. The study finds the same characteristics as other dust clouds in space, but they are sure that they need more observations to prove this.

X7 has a mass of about 50 Earths and is on an orbital path around Sgr A* that would take 170 years to complete.

Reference(s): Research ArticleNews Release

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