"A Cloud of Hundreds of Trillions of Asteroids and Comets Surrounds the Milky Way's Black Hole"

 

                   

A new study suggests mysterious X-ray flares seen during periodic observations over several years and happen about once every day caught by the Chandra Space Telescope may be asteroids falling into the Milky Way's giant black hole. If confirmed, this result may mean that there is a cloud around the black hole containing hundreds of trillions of asteroids and comets.

The image below from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the center of our Galaxy, with a supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* for short) in the center. Using intermittent observations over several years, Chandra has detected X-ray flares about once a day from Sgr A*. The flares have also been seen in infrared data from ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile.

A new study provides a possible explanation for the mysterious flares. The suggestion is that there is a cloud around Sgr A* containing hundreds of trillions of asteroids and comets, which have been stripped from their parent stars. The panel on the left is an image containing nearly a million seconds of Chandra observing of the region around the black hole, with red representing low-energy X-rays, green as medium-energy X-rays, and blue being the highest.

An asteroid that undergoes a close encounter with another object, such as a star or planet, can be thrown into an orbit headed towards Sgr A*, as seen in a series of artist's illustrations beginning with the top-right panel. If the asteroid passes within about 100 million miles of the black hole, roughly the distance between the Earth and the Sun, it would be torn into pieces by the tidal forces from the black hole (middle-right panel).

These fragments would then be vaporized by friction as they pass through the hot, thin gas flowing onto Sgr A*, similar to a meteor heating up and glowing as it falls through Earth's atmosphere. A flare is produced (bottom-right panel) and eventually the remains of the asteroid are swallowed by the black hole.

Another solar system analogy for this type of event has recently been reported. About once every three days a comet is destroyed when it flies into the hot atmosphere of the Sun. So, despite the significant differences in the two environments, the destruction rate of comets and asteroids by the Sun and Sgr A* may be similar.

Very long observations of Sgr A* will be made with Chandra later in 2012 that will give valuable new information about the frequency and brightness of flares and should help to test the model proposed here to explain them. This work has the potential to understand the ability of asteroids and planets to form in the harsh environment of Sgr A*.

 

The Daily Galaxy via Chandra X-Ray Space Telescope

 

Comments

[Holographicgalaxy]

black holes are descriptions of electromagnetic forces and are phony inventions

[trader ho]

oh geez, not that crackpot again

[GodParticle]

Fascinating and exciting discovery. The question is - how so many asteroids could have formed near the black hole. Or are they remnants of some unfortunate stars that happen to pass by too close to the event horizon of Sgr A*, and thereby getting ripped apart by the tidal forces of the Black hole ?

[Asdf]

There is no proof whatsoever that those flashes are caused by asteroids falling into a "black hole".

This sets a pretty low standard, actually.

Somebody's wild guess is presented as a likely scenario.

OK, let me present a different wild guess. I have no proof but then those who claim those are asteroids have no proof either. We are on an equal level.

What if those flashes are in fact mass and energy ejections from the interdimensional portal holding this galaxy together? (Which our scientist call a "black hole".)

What if we are observing the actual emergence of material used to build this galaxy? What if we are seeing our quasar ejecting matter and energy by downstepping the energy coming to it from higher dimensions? We maybe looking at how this galaxy is being built!

We can not see higher dimensional objects. Hence we call them "black holes".

[Asdf]

One more thing.

These flashes are pretty much regular, aren't they?

Just for the regularity of it, those can't be asteroids.

[Brennen]

@Asdf

I've been thinking the same way as you for years. We're just seeing black holes wrong possibly because of gravity, magnetism or some other force we've yet to know. I've always been skeptical of stars exploding since no one has ever seen one do so before. I call black holes creation points.

twitter: @nervousjuice

[fullofhops]

go to you tube and watch the electric universe: thunderbolts of the gods. it offers alternative thinking to the black hole theory.