A gas cloud falling into the Milky Way’s central black hole

This is a simulation by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching (Germany), showing the evolution of gas cloud G2 from the year 2000 up to the year 2064. G2 is a cloud of ionised gas with a mass greater than three times that of the Earth. The interesting aspect is that from late 2013 onwards part of it will fall into the supermassive black hole at the centre of our Milky Way. Scientists hope to learn more about black holes by directly detecting the corresponding bursts of radiation