Submission + - Astronomers Find Supermassive Black Hole Gobbling (motherboard.tv)
pigrabbitbear writes: "It’s no surprise that black holes are basically celestial Cookie Monsters, gobbling anything and everything in sight. But because that appetite includes light itself, it’s incredibly rare for us to actually see a black hole suck back an interstellar treat. Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope have found just that: a mysterious, giant gas cloud that’s rapidly been pulled into the maw of a supermassive black hole.
The researchers, led by Reinhard Genzel of the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, discovered the cloud as part of a now 20-year ESO program tasked with tracking stars as they whirl around the supermassive black hole, known as Sgr A*, at the center of our galaxy."
The researchers, led by Reinhard Genzel of the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, discovered the cloud as part of a now 20-year ESO program tasked with tracking stars as they whirl around the supermassive black hole, known as Sgr A*, at the center of our galaxy."