Mystery survivor of a supermassive black hole

Bally, John

doi:10.1038/524301a

Published: 19 August 2015

Astrophysics

Mystery survivor of a supermassive black hole

John Bally¹

Nature volume 524, pages 301–302 (2015)Cite this article

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Astronomy and astrophysics

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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The discovery of the G2 cloud's headlong plunge towards the central black hole caused much excitement among astronomers⁵. Models of G2's orbit predicted that the cloud would pass close to the black hole sometime during the spring of 2014. Even by late 2013, there was tentative evidence that parts of a tidal gas stream escaping from G2 had passed behind the SMBH and were emerging on the other side. Would the black hole swallow enough gas to ignite a burst of emissions activity? Would our Galaxy's centre suddenly brighten across the spectrum from X-rays to radio wavelengths and briefly resemble the powerful active galactic nuclei (quasars) associated with SMBHs in some galaxies? Dozens of papers emerged with predictions. Numerical models⁶ of clouds on plunging orbits predicted that a considerable amount of gas would spiral into the clutches of Sagittarius A^*, igniting fireworks.

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**Figure 1: At close quarters to Sagittarius A^*.**

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John Bally is in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80389, USA.
John Bally

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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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Published: 19 August 2015
Issue Date: 20 August 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/524301a