Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole Plays Cosmic Pinball With X7 Dust
News 18After 20 years of high-resolution near-infrared data from the W.M. In a statement released by the University of California Los Angles, lead author Anna Ciurlo, an assistant researcher at UCLA, said “No other object in this region has shown such an extreme evolution.” She further added, “It started off comet-shaped and people thought maybe it got that shape from stellar winds or jets of particles from the black hole. Co-author Mark Morris, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy, also added, “We anticipate the strong tidal forces exerted by the galactic black hole will ultimately tear X7 apart before it completes even one orbit.” Scientists believe that X7 provides a unique insight into the interaction between the supermassive black hole and its surroundings. They have ruled out the possibility of X7’s shaping by a spherical wind from the black hole at the center of the Milky Way called Sgr A*. Scientists have also observed that the rapidly decreasing radial velocity of X7’s tip indicated the dominant gravitational influence of the supermassive black hole.
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