The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013

The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013.

"In the nearly 20 years we've been observing Sgr A*, only two stars have ever come closer to it. But stars are held together by gravity; this cloud is too diffuse to have that sort of coherence. As a result, the authors expect that it will undergo dramatic changes as it blasts in to the neighborhood of the black hole. The shock of hitting the low-density, high-temperature gas will compress the cloud even as the black hole's gravity starts to stretch it out along the direction of its orbit. This could eventually split the cloud into multiple fragments, each of which may take a slightly different path around the black hole. As these fragments reach the point in the orbit closest to black hole, its temperatures may reach 10106K, hot enough for it to start emitting X-rays."