Milky Way’s Black Hole Creating New Stellar Objects, Scientists Reveal

Astronomers have discovered that the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy is creating a new type of star. According to the astronomers, the new creations seem like a hybrid of two cosmic objects.

Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, is known for its immense gravitational pull that attracts various cosmic objects such as dust, gas and even stars to its center. In some cases, the pull of the black hole causes these objects to collide with one another.

Recently, a team of astronomers observing Sagittarius A* spotted six strange new objects near the supermassive black hole’s center. Although the stellar objects were not like anything they have seen before, the astronomers noted that they displayed features that are very familiar.

The six objects, which have been labeled G1 to G6 in a new study published in Nature, appear like massive blobs of gas. The astronomers noted that each of these blobs are several times more massive than Earth. Although the objects appear like blobs of gas, they don’t get torn apart when they approach the edge of Sagittarius A*. Astronomers noted that this characteristic is very similar to the behavior of young stars.

To determine the exact nature of the objects, the astronomers observed Milky Way’s center to find other G-type cosmic matter. After discovering a few more objects, they analyzed their characteristics to learn more about their nature. This led the astronomers to believe that the strange stellar objects are hybrids of gas and stars.

According to the astronomers, these new objects may have formed after a pair of binary stars, which are systems composed of two stellar objects that orbit one another, collided and merged due to the gravitational pull of Sagittarius A*. The powerful collision between the cosmic objects produced massive amounts of gas and dust. This caused the newly-formed object to appear like a giant cloud of gas.

“Black holes may be driving binary stars to merge,” Andrea Ghaz of the University of California and co-author of the new study said in a statement. “It's possible that many of the stars we've been watching and not understanding may be the end product of [these] mergers.”