A cloud that was close to a black hole has been revealed.
A new study claims that the object is actually three baby stars, shrouded in a thick cloud of gas and dust from when they were born. The questions that remained unanswered after G2 skimmed past Sgr A* were solved by this interpretation.
The researchers wrote in their paper that they propose that the monitored dust-enshrouded objects are remnants of a dissolved young stellar cluster.
In a study published in 2012 G2 was discovered. At that time, it was hurtling towards an event called perinigricon, which is the closest point to the black hole.
Astronomers expected that the close encounter would cause G2 to be torn apart and eaten by Sgr A*.
The fact that nothing happened was referred to as a "cosmic fizzle". As it drew closer to the black hole, G2 stretched out and became larger.
G2 is very hot, far hotter than a cloud of dust, which is vexing. It is possible that Sgr A* could have heated the object, but it remained the same temperature. This suggested that the cloud was heating G2 itself.
Astronomers found that both of these behaviors were in line with the behavior of a star. A team of researchers suggested last year that the G2 cloud could be home to a hidden star, the result of a collision between two stars that produced a huge cloud of gas and dust.
There are now six G objects in the center of the universe. That's a lot of stars.
A team of researchers led by astrophysicist Florian Peiker from the University of Cologne in Germany have come up with an alternative explanation for the observations taken with the Very Large Telescope's SINFONI instrument.
G2 should be concealing three stars, which are around 1 million years old. The Sun is almost 4 billion years old, while stars are just over 2 billion. The G2 stars are so young that they are surrounded by material from the cloud in which they formed.
Peiker says that the discovery makes the three stars the youngest stars ever observed around SgrA*.
The S-cluster is a group of young stars. The G2 stars could be part of this population according to Peiker's model.
The stars could have arisen in the same stellar nursery, forming a cluster which has since dissolved, with individual stars breaking away and generating new orbits around Sgr A*.
The G2 stars were likely part of a larger group of stars at some point. The cluster of objects could have been disrupted by gravity if they had moved closer to the black hole.
The environment around Sgr A* is not suitable for star formation and more work will be needed to discover where G2 and the other G objects came from. Astronomers may be able to use the new findings to learn more about black holes.
Peiker says that the new results give unique insights into how black holes work.
The environment of SgrA* can be used to learn more about the evolution and processes of other galaxies in completely different corners of our Universe.
The research was published in a journal.
