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Astrophysics

Mystery survivor of a supermassive black hole

The G2 cloud in our Galaxy's core has survived an encounter with the central black hole and failed to trigger a major flare-up in the black hole's activity. A promising theory endeavours to explain the cloud's nature.

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Figure 1: At close quarters to Sagittarius A*.

ESO/A. Eckart

Figure 2: The Galactic Centre.

A. Eckart et al. Pers. Comm.

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Correspondence to John Bally.

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Bally, J. Mystery survivor of a supermassive black hole. Nature 524, 301–302 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/524301a

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