Little gas cloud`s fate could reveal much about growth of black holes

Researchers have said that the gas cloud that`s edging closer to the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy could reveal much about these entities.

Washington: Researchers have said that the gas cloud that`s edging closer to the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy could reveal much about these entities.

Northwestern University`s Daryl Haggard has been closely watching the little cloud, called G2, and the black hole, called Sgr A*, as part of a study that should eventually help solve one of the outstanding questions surrounding black holes: How exactly do they achieve such supermassive proportions?
The closest approach between the black hole and gas cloud is predicted to occur any day now. Haggard has been using two world-class observatories, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Very Large Array, to gather data on this potentially spectacular encounter.

"Our most recent Chandra observation does not show enhanced emission in the X-rays," Haggard said. "From the X-ray perspective, the gas cloud is late to the party, but it remains to be seen whether G2 is fashionably late or a no show."
"This work is fascinating because it will teach us about the growth and feeding of supermassive black holes," said Haggard, a postdoctoral fellow in Northwestern`s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA). "We know they are big, and we know they are out there-in vast numbers-but we aren`t sure in detail how they get their mass.

"Do they grow rapidly when they are young, like our kids do, or do they grow in fits and starts, whenever fuel becomes available? In watching the encounter between Sgr A* and G2 we may catch a massive black hole in the act of snatching its next meal," she said.

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