Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: jeffreyH on 19/10/2017 13:04:13
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The gas cloud g3 survived its encounter with Sag A*. Does this article explain why?
https://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/pressreleases/2014/6
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The Max Planck article is talking about plasma in the hot accretion disk of an active black hole. A small fraction of this plasma is turned into jets that get expelled from the black hole (and even expelled from the galaxy, if they are directed out of the galactic plane*).
G2 is in an orbit around the black hole at the center of our galaxy. It is not (yet) part of the accretion disk, and so magnetic fields would not be affecting it strongly. In fact, our black hole at the moment is very quiet, with minimal activity in the accretion disk, and no polar jets.
The scientists were hoping that some gas from G2 would fall into the black hole, activating an accretion disk, even if only briefly. But it didn't happen. Some possible reasons here:
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A*#Discovery_of_G2_gas_cloud_on_an_accretion_course (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A*#Discovery_of_G2_gas_cloud_on_an_accretion_course)
If it is true that this is actually a stream of gas (or a disrupted globular cluster) orbiting the black hole, I guess other clumps will pass by, so there will be other opportunities to study the phenomenon.
*If the jets were emitted in the galactic plane, I imagine they would produce something like a barred spiral galaxy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barred_spiral_galaxy)?