These peculiar objects have been named G by the astronomy community.
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Simulation of the G Objects around the Supermassive Black Hole
The initial two objects, known as G1 and G2, first came into the observation range of astronomers nearly two decades ago. This duo exhibits strange orbits and properties. After extensive observation, researchers have found them to be likely massive gas clouds spanning about 100 astronomical units (the distance from the Sun to the Earth is considered as one astronomical unit). The gas clouds’ extent comes close to touching the black hole’s event horizon.
However, G1 and G2 behave more like stars than gas clouds, as explained by physicist and astronomer Andrea Ghez of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in 2020, according to Science Alert.
Ghez and her team have been studying the center of the Milky Way for over 20 years. Based on this data, the leading team of astronomers, including expert Anna Ciurlo from UCLA, has discovered four additional similar objects, namely G3, G4, G5, and G6.
The group of four newly identified objects is found to be on different orbits than G1 and G2. Together, the G objects have orbital periods ranging from 170 to 1,600 years, as reported in the journal Nature.
To this day, it remains unclear what these objects are and why they can exist in the vicinity of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* without being devoured by this “monster.”