Recent research suggests that travel to the center of our galaxy and one would find a black hole; but not just a regular black hole, which is still fairly elusive, but an even stranger and more powerful supermassive black hole. Recently, new observations have discovered an object surprisingly coming into contact the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, and living to tell about it.
Known as “G2,” scientists are still trying to determine exactly what is the object that is in orbit around the proposed black hole at the center of the galaxy. The object was discovered in 2011, and captured the attention of scientists, as the object was potentially going to be ripped apart and snacked upon by the supermassive black hole, dubbed “Sagittarius A.” But the strange object survived its encounter, and lived to tell the tale, retaining its shape, much to the awe of scientists and astrophysicists.
Once thought to be a cloud of gas, the behavior of the object has scientists refiguring what exactly the object is, since a gas cloud would have been smeared beyond obstruction. This has led some scientists to believe the object is a young star.
The strange object remains fuzzy looking in most photographing instruments because of the shoddy resolution. It is understandably difficult to take pictures of the inner center of the galaxy given Earth’s position at the outer rim. The object also appears fuzzy due to the outer layer of gas around it, which is one of the only thing scientists can agree on. What lies at the center of the gas is still the object of hot debate.
Leading the discussions on what is inside, is first, The Max Planck Institute, led by Steffan Gillessen, who first identified G2 back in 2011, and secondly, the University of Los Angeles, led by Andrea Ghez, who was one of the scientists who first demonstrated that there might be a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. And now, a third group, A group of scientists from the University of Colonge in Germany who agree with Ghez, that the object is actually a star.
But Gillessen is unswayed by the other two groups and retains his belief that the object is a cloud of gas.
Despite disagreements, all groups observing G2 belong to a small community observing the galactic phenomena. The Cologne and Max Plank groups are collaborating on a telescopic instrument. They hope to finally identify what is the identity of G2 by 2015.
