Why This Weird Object Being Dragged into the Center of Our Galaxy Is Confusing Scientists

Amaze Lab

An elongated object near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, known only as ‘X7,’ has piqued the curiosity of scientists for 20 years. A new study offers a potential explanation.

Transcript

00:00An object with a mass of about 50 Earths, known only as X7, is slowly being stretched

00:10and pulled into the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

00:15Since it was first discovered 20 years ago, scientists have wondered about its origins.

00:21After studying its extreme evolution compared to other nearby objects across that time period,

00:27researchers from the UCLA Galactic Center Group and Hawaii's Keck Observatory believe

00:32it could be a cloud of dust and gas left over from a collision between two stars.

00:38As the study's lead author Anna Kierlow contends, per a report from UCLA,

00:57it started off comet-shaped, and people thought maybe it got that shape from stellar winds

01:07or jets of particles from the black hole.

01:10But as we followed it for 20 years, we saw it becoming more elongated.

01:15Something must have put this cloud on its particular path with its particular orientation.

01:20The object is currently on an orbital path around the black hole, known as Sagittarius

01:25A, that would take 170 years to complete.

01:29But based on its trajectory, the researchers predict the black hole's strong tidal forces

01:34will eventually tear it apart before then.

01:37In the meantime, it's clocking speeds of around 700 miles per second as it closes in

01:42on its final destination, Science Daily reports.

01:46The team's findings were published in the Astrophysical Journal.

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