The black hole in the center of our galaxy turns stars into something strange

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The black hole in the center of our galaxy turns stars into something strange
The black hole in the center of our galaxy turns stars into something strange
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The Milky Way Galaxy, like many other spiral galaxies in the Universe, hides at its center a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A *. This mysterious object of incredible size constantly attracts stars, dust and other matter into its immediate vicinity, forming a superdense stellar metropolis. According to the portal livescience.com, sometimes the stars in the space closest to the black hole have to enter into fierce competition, which sometimes leads to very unpredictable consequences.

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At the center of our galaxy is the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A *

Strange objects found in the center of our galaxy

In a new study, published in the journal Nature, astronomers describe six mysterious objects orbiting the central black hole of our galaxy. According to the authors, the discovered anomalous objects, named G1-G6, look like elongated clots of gas several times more massive than the Earth. Despite their small size by cosmic standards, the discovered objects behave like small stars that can pass dangerously close to the edge of a black hole without being torn to shreds.

What exactly can these fearless space objects be: gas clots or full-fledged stars? According to the authors of the study, strange objects can be both. So, each detected object G can be a pair of binary stars that millions of years ago were shattered by the powerful gravity of a black hole. Andrea Guez, professor of astrophysics at the University of California and co-author of the study, believes that black holes can lead to coalescence of binary stars. The background for this hypothesis was the analysis of the orbits of the first two detected objects G, which followed a strikingly similar orbit around Sagittarius A *.

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The gravitational effect of a black hole in the center of our galaxy is capable of transforming binary stars into objects of a new type.

Interpreting the beams of gas as the remnants of an unfortunate dead star gravitationally damaged by a super-powerful nearby black hole, some astronomers expected to see the final death of miniature stars as a result of their absorption by Sagittarius A back in 2014. However, to the great surprise of scientists, nothing of the kind happened, and the "under-stars" surprisingly survived within a few hundred astronomical units of the black hole. Stretching and distorting near the black hole, G objects regained their original shape as they gradually moved away from it. This unusual behavior suggests that something extremely powerful is holding the blob of gas together - that is, the G objects could be full-fledged stars.

To test this hypothesis, the authors of the study spent several years exploring the center of the galaxy from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii in search of new G-type objects. The team managed to find four more new clumps that met the requirements, orbiting Sgr A *. They are all gravitationally crumpled binary star products that formed about 5 million years ago near Sgr A *. Perhaps, we will hardly be able to see how these objects look in reality in the foreseeable future, however, the discovery of “crumpled” stars suggests that the Universe may contain even more potential mysteries for the science of the future.

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