Scientists have determined a giant gas cloud is on a collision course with the black hole in the center of our galaxy, and the two will be close enough by mid-2013 to provide a unique opportunity to observe how a super massive black hole sucks in material, in real time. This will give astronomers more information on how matter behaves near a black hole.

“The next few years will be really fantastic and exciting because we are probing new territory,” said Reinhard Genzel, leading a team from the ESO in observations with the Very Large Telescope. “Here this cloud comes in gets disrupted and now it will begin to interact with the hot gas right around the black hole. We have never seen this before.”

By June of 2012, the gas cloud is expected to be just 36 light-hours (equivalent to 40,000,000,000 km) away from our galaxy’s black hole, which is extremely close in astronomical terms.

Astronomers have determined the speed of the gas cloud has increased, doubling over the past seven years, and is now reaching more than 8 million km per hour.The cloud is estimated to be three times the mass of Earth and the density of the cloud is much higher than that of the hot gas surround black hole. But the black hole has a tremendous gravitational force, and so the gas cloud will fall into the direction of the black hole, be elongated and stretched and look like spaghetti, said Stefan Gillessen, astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Munich, Germany, who has been observing our galaxy’s black hole, known as Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A*), for 20 years.

“So far there were only two stars that came that close to Sagittarius A*,” Gillessen said. “They passed unharmed, but this time will be different: the gas cloud will be completely ripped apart by the tidal forces of the black hole.”

Watch a video of observations of the cloud for the past 10 years:

Read more:http://www.universetoday.com/95982/gas-cloud-will-collide-with-our-galaxys-black-hole-in-2013/#more-95982

That url gives a 404 not found, this one works:
http://www.universetoday.com/95982/gas-cloud-will-collide-with-our-galaxys-black-hole-in-2013/

VERY interesting stuff.
You cannot see a size change through the years
of the cloud.

at the very end of the video, it looked like to me the gas cloud was already being sucked into the BH...it had a cone shape at the bottom

Do they hypothesize..ramifications?

i tried to fix it, but i guess you have to click home page and the follow that link to it... sorry

i don't know, depends on the size of it, i guess... there could be an entire solar systems worth of debris in the cloud....

http://www.universetoday.com/95982/gas-cloud-will-collide-with-our-galaxys-black-hole-in-2013/

Works for me.

thank you... i'm not that smart, i guess...

So some gas gets sucked into the black hole.

Big deal.

I don't see that to be too interesting.

So, will adversely affect Pelosi or can she handle it?

Just teasing.

Will it be visible or will someone be able to record it.

Haven't watched the movie.

i have done that in the bathroom. Gas clouds and stuff.
but not the black hole thing.

i didn't think it would, it doesn't have anything to do with bashing jews..

can't blame it on them, huh...