53.49\xa0million\xa0light yearsM87 lies about 55 million light-years from Earth.
In 2017 the Event Horizon Telescope obtained images of the central region of M87 that showed an asymmetric ring of radio emission surrounding a dark object..
Binaries have revealed around 50 suspected or confirmed stellar-mass black holes in the Milky Way, but scientists think there may be as many as 100 million in our galaxy alone..
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy around 13.6 billion years old with large pivoting arms stretching out across the cosmos..
X7 has a mass of about 50 Earths and is on an orbital path around Sgr A* that would take 170 years to complete.
But that might never happen.
Based on its trajectory, the team estimates that X7 will make its closest approach to Sgr A* around the year 2036, and then likely spiral toward Sgr A* and disappear.Feb 24, 2023.
X7 has a mass of about 50 Earths and is on an orbital path around Sgr A* that would take 170 years to complete.
But that might never happen.
Based on its trajectory, the team estimates that X7 will make its closest approach to Sgr A* around the year 2036, and then likely spiral toward Sgr A* and disappear..
Quasars are a subclass of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), extremely luminous galactic cores where gas and dust falling into a supermassive black hole emit electromagnetic radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum..
The researchers propose that X7 is a blob of gas and dust from the merger of two stars — an event they say is very common, especially around black holes.
As the stars collided and combined, they threw out a cloud of burning plasma that later became the giant blob..
The dust cloud, called X7 and about as massive as 50 Earths, is orbiting our galaxy's supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*.
Over the past 20 years, astronomers have observed the cloud's journey using the W.
M.
Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaiʻi, one of the world's most powerful telescopes.Feb 23, 2023.
Stellar black holes are formed as a natural consequence of the evolution of massive stars.
The origin of supermassive black holes is a mystery.
They are found only in the centers of galaxies..
Objects whose gravitational fields are too strong for light to escape were first considered in the 18th century by John Michell and Pierre-Simon Laplace.
In 1916, Karl Schwarzschild found the first modern solution of general relativity that would characterize a black hole..
A new study suggests that the object
Called X7
Could be a cloud of dust and gas that was created when two stars collided. The researchers believe it will eventually be drawn toward the black hole and will disintegrate.
University of California - Los Angeles. "A mysterious object is being dragged into the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way's center:
Astronomers think the object
X7
Might be debris cloud from a stellar collision." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily24 February 2023. .
The researchers believe it will eventually be drawn toward the black hole and will disintegrate. For two decades
Scientists have observed an elongated object named X7 near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way and wondered what it was. Was it pulled off a larger structure nearby?
X7 is on a 170-year-long elliptical orbit around the Milky Way 's supermassive black hole
Called Sagittarius A*. Changes to the shape of the debris cloud
However
Suggest that it won't make it that far.
X7 has a mass of about 50 Earths and is on an orbital path around our galaxy’s black hole, called Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A*), that would take 170 years to complete.
X7 is one of a multitude of filaments that exist in the Milky Way 's galactic center. These filaments, called the G objects, orbit extremely fast around the vicinity of the black hole, at speeds of up to 490 miles per second (790 kilometers per second).
X7 is on a 170-year-long elliptical orbit around the Milky Way 's supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A*. Changes to the shape of the debris cloud, however, suggest that it won't make it that far.
