Scientists found weird celestial objects near the galactic core

SPACE — Scientists identified a new class of celestial bodies near the Sagittarius A, the Milky Way Galaxy's supermassive black hole.

According to the paper in Nature Astronomy, the six strange objects, named G1 through G6, orbit around Sagittarius A in circuits that range from 100 to 1,000 years.

Citing the authors, the University of California Los Angeles says that as the objects are close to Sagittarius A, the black hole stretches them out of shape and strip away their outer gas shell.

Observing one of the objects G2, the researchers found that even after the black hole dramatically elongates its gas shell, the object retains a relatively coherent dust core.

This suggests G2--and by inference, the rest of the G-class objects--had stellar objects inside the core.

Co-author and UCLA professor Andrea Ghez speculates that all six G objects were formerly binary stars that fell under the black hole's influence.

Ghez says that Sagittarius A's powerful gravity may have caused the binary stars to merge and to give rise to the weird G-class objects.