http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/why-our-galaxys-black-hole-didnt-eat-that-mystery-object-141104.htm
This article was about the expected collision between our galaxy’s black hole, called Sagittarius A, and a cosmic cloud of gas called G2 that never happened. At first, astronomers were disappointed to realize that the impending explosion, which would occur if the collision had happened, was not going to take place. Later, though, they realized that there was a special reason that this cloud was able to pass by the black hole without being pulled into it. This is that the cloud was actually a star surrounded by gas and dust, and that said star was part of a binary system. Being bloated from a merger, or close encounter with a black hole, the cloud did not move in clumps, but rather streams, of material and therefore was able to negate the radiation of the black hole, or play "chicken," and remain relatively intact. The cloud is still in orbit now.
This finding is quite important to astronomy and humanity in general. Andrea Ghez, an astronomer, states, “It’s possible that many of the stars we’ve been watching and not understanding may be the end product of mergers that are calm now… We are starting to understand the physics of black holes in a way that has never been possible before.” Because they were able to figure this out, the possibilities of bloated stars being the products of mergers, which are what happens when binary systems pass too close to a black hole. Understanding this concept, scientists will be able to research aspects of stars that they have never been able to think about before because they had not understood this foundational concept. This finding will greatly increase our understanding of the world, and universe, around us, and will probably lead to even more significant discoveries in the future.
I thought that this article was well-written, but I found a few problems with it. While the author did a good job of explaining the big ideas in the piece, she did not provide explanation for many of the little things that readers might not know about. For instance, I found her explanation of a merger hard to understand. Another thing that I think the author of this article could have improved on would be providing background knowledge of the objects she mentioned. She could have described black holes in more detail or talked about other incidents of gas clouds to give us a greater understanding of the star passing the black hole. Although this article would be a bit hard for a beginner to understand, the author did a wonderful job of explaining this event and the significance behind it.
Ali opened her review with an interesting sentence drawing the reader in. Additionally, her critique was clear and understandable. Her vocabulary was for the most part clear and understandable to the average reader. However, Ali could have defined what a binary star system is. Not all of us are taking Earth Science and have learned what this is. She could also have explained why, besides increasing understanding, this article was so important. I learned from Ali's article that scientists make predictions but are not always correct. Their ideas show always be tested and not taken for the actual reality.
ReplyDeleteAfter I read Ali’s review of the article Why Our Galaxy's Black Hole Didn't Eat That Mystery Object I felt she did a very good job explaining certain aspects of the article that may not have made sense and would have detracted from the review if she hadn’t. I also felt that the way she used nontraditional words like “quite” also adds to the review because it gives it some color or texture or even just keeps you engaged in the review. I also liked that she used quotes to support her response because it provides evidence for what ever she was arguing. Unfortunately during Ali’s critique she mentioned a merger and stated that the authors explanation was hard to understand, had she done some research and found out exactly what a merger was and explained it after she spoke about the merger it would greatly add to her review. At the end of Ali’s summary she briefly added “The cloud is still in orbit now.”. After seeing this i felt that there was a sentence or two missing there where as she could have just finished off her summary without stating the cloud’s current state. Alternatively after reading the articles title i was intrigued to learn more and after reading Ali’s review i figured that in the future maybe we could use a similar concept to escape black holes during interstellar travel. Overall i felt Ali did a good job with just a few minor tweaks or things that could be fixed.
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