Black hole bonanza possible as immense gas cloud passes

[Crisp]

Black hole bonanza possible as immense gas cloud passes

The cloud will approach Sagittarius A* on an elliptical orbit, passing close but not getting entirely sucked in

A vast and hidden field of small black holes predicted to be near the centre of our galaxy could be revealed as a giant gas cloud passes by.

The G2 cloud is as large as our Solar System, and bound for a "supermassive" black hole at the Milky Way's core.

On the way, it should encounter many black holes just tens of km across.

A report in Physical Review Letters suggests they will spin and heat the gas, which will emit a spray of X-ray light that telescopes could see.

The cloud of gas - three times larger than Pluto's orbit but with a total mass just three times that of the Earth - was first spotted on its course toward the galaxy's centre in 2011.

Researchers have been gearing up for the cloud's approach to the galaxy's enormous central black hole, with its closest approach in September.

The cloud was spotted in 2011, moving at speeds of millions of m/s

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[Bryan R.]

Wow, I can't wait to see what amazing snapshots we will get and some more evidence of what churns our galaxy and countless others.