Galactic Center Collision Due Soon
I don’t know much about our Galactic Center, and scientists don’t know that much more. Here are some concepts that are mostly agreed:
- Most galactic centers harbor black holes, and it looks like they probably all do
- Those black holes are generally very energetic
- The source of the energy is anything that gets sucked in
- Our galactic center is very quiet in comparison
Maybe it is just hungry? Well, it is about to be fed:
Scientists have determined a giant gas cloud is on a collision course with the black hole in the center of our galaxy, and the two will be close enough by mid-2013 to provide a unique opportunity to observe how a super massive black hole sucks in material, in real time. This will give astronomers more information on how matter behaves near a black hole.
“The next few years will be really fantastic and exciting because we are probing new territory,” said Reinhard Genzel… “We have never seen this before.”
…No one really knows how the collision will unfold, but the cloud’s edges have already started to shred and it is expected to break up completely over the coming months. As the time of actual collision approaches, the cloud is expected to get much hotter and will probably start to emit X-rays as a result of the interaction with the black hole.
…And so this upcoming collision just 27,000 light years away will likely provide new insights on the behavior of black holes.
Read more at Universe Today
Should we be worried? Well, yes and no. On the one hand, scientists know that 27,000 light years is too far away for any harm to come to us. And these types of collisions would be commonplace – we just haven’t been watching for long enough to see the previous ones.
But on the other hand, three key aspects of the 2012 mystery are coming together:
- Time – extremely close to Dec 21, 2012 – and potentially closer than the estimate of the scientists
- Place – there is currently an alignment of sorts between us, the Sun and the Galactic Center
- Doom – the X-rays could cause harm if they were focused and directed straight at us
Regarding the final factor, the energy emitted by black holes typically follows two narrow, opposite paths, or jets.
Relativistic jets are extremely powerful jets of plasma which emerge from presumed massive objects at the centers of some active galaxies, notably radio galaxies and quasars. Their lengths can reach several thousand or even hundreds of thousands of light years. [Wikipedia]
And I don’t think we will know which way those jets are pointed as yet. If they were pointed at us, and if they always have been, then it could be a partial explanation for what makes Earth, and us, so special.
In the story before this one,someone said something to the effect of “the black hole in the center of our galacy has gotten brighter recently”. Please expane to me how a “black hole” could get brighter!! I mean,that’s why there called Black Holes for pete’s sake. In fact most articals contain stories about black holes can’t even be seen right? Now I’m completely lost about black holes!!!!
When a black hole sucks in matter, some of that matter is released away from the black hole as energy. So when there is no sucking, it is black, but when it is, shooting out from the blackness is some energy that can be measured.