At the center of the Milky Way rests Sagittarius A * , a supermassive shameful mess weighing over 4.6 million time our Sun . Around it , there are stars and gas . Now , stargazer from UCLA and the W. M. Keck Observatory have found something else : odd objects that spring a class of their own .
The first physical object of this young “ G ” class was discovered in 2005 . A second one , G2 , was found in 2012 . Now four more have been announce in a newNaturestudy . The objects are believed to be the end product of a merger between two stars . The lead large star has a thick gasbag of gas , and whenever it bring closer to the calamitous hole , it gets stretch out like an interstellar gas cloud .
“ These objects await like gas but behave like stars , ” carbon monoxide - source Professor Andrea Ghez , director of the UCLA Galactic Center Group , said in astatement .
“ At the time of closest approach , G2 had a really strange signature , ” Ghez said . “ We had find it before , but it did n’t look too peculiar until it get tight to the inglorious maw and became elongate , and much of its gas was torn aside . It fit from being a jolly innocuous object when it was far from the black yap to one that was really extend out and distorted at its close approach and turn a loss its extinct shell , and now it ’s getting more compact again . ”
The team suggest that Sagittarius A * might have been playing an important role in facilitating mergers of this character . The squad is confident that the G objects are stars because while the gas was stretch during the close passing to the black hole , they detected that the dust-covered component within the gun was not .
“ Something must have kept it compact and enabled it to survive its encounter with the disastrous yap . This is evidence for a leading object inside G2 , ” lead author Anna Ciurlo , a UCLA postdoctoral researcher , say .
“ The unequalled dataset that Professor Ghez ’s group has conglomerate during more than 20 years is what allowed us to make this discovery , ” she added . “ We now have a universe of ‘ GB ’ objects , so it is not a matter of explaining a ‘ one - time event ’ like G2 . ”
The field of the six G objects stove between 100 and 1,000 years for a single journeying around the supermassive ignominious jam . G2 lost some gas in 2014 during its unaired approach , and it is potential thatthe activity seen in 2019is concern to this material finally make Sagittarius A * .
