Filed under things that are both getting merged together and torn apart are a new class of objects found orbiting our galaxy’s supermassive blackhole. I finally got my hands on the full article only an hour before we recorded this episode, so I’m only going to touch on this story today.  I’m planning an update on the inner galaxy for next Tuesday. Here is the TL;DR version (and I mean too late; didn’t read): 6 blobs have been found orbiting in the innermost part of our galaxy. Each blob is roughly the size of a solar system – about 100 AU across – and orbits like a single object rather than like a cloud. These objects are nice and star like, albeit huge, for most of their 100 to 1000 year long orbits, but get stretched out into streams as they fly past, Sag A*, the supermassive black hole in the heart of our galaxy. The best explanation for these weird objects is that they are binary stars that were driven into merging orbits through their interactions with Sag A* until they eventually became essentially one bloated object. Every time these pairs pass near Sag A* they have gas striped off and get a little bit smaller. Eventually that gas will fall into the black hole and give off some fantastic radiation. There is a lot more nuance to this story, and I look forward to devouring the research paper and bringing you deeper explanations next week.

For more info, check:

Astronomers Discover Class Of Strange Objects Near Our Galaxy’s Enormous Black Hole (Keck)