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An artist rendering of the gas cloud being pulled towards Sgr A*. Courtesy ESO/MPE/Marc Schartmann

Not long from now, astronomers are going to witness something they’ve never seen before: a black hole chowing down on a feast. Although scientists have a short list of probable black holes, there’s only one close enough for us to observe with any detail, and that’s the one in the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics confirmed this week in Nature that they’ve discovered a gas cloud plowing straight for it.

Sgr A* is a “supermassive” black hole, with the mass of about four million Suns. Although these still mysterious objects are difficult to observe directly, since they absorb all light that gets too close, there are a few ways to gather data. One is by studying the accretion disk; the extreme gravitational forces coming from the black hole compress material as it falls ever closer, and this causes an emission of electromagnetic radiation. With black holes, that radiation is usually in the x-ray range. Studying this radiation can tell astronomers a lot about the black hole itself.

So why is the discovery of this gas cloud so exciting? Because Sgr A* is a fairly quiet black hole. There’s not a lot of nearby material for it to feast on, and so not a lot of data for astronomers to collect. But this gas cloud is barreling down a path almost straight toward Sgr A*. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile’s Atacama desert, the astronomers have been able to track the cloud’s path and determine its size and mass — it covers an area about the size of our solar system, with the mass of just three Earths.

Even more exciting, in a universe where human life spans are mere blips in astronomical time, it turns out this gas cloud is going to reach Sgr A* in just about 18 months. The same Max Planck scientists who authored the Nature paper will be the ones collecting data from the VLT in mid-2013. That has to be high on the list of astronomer dreams.

The cloud is already close enough to start being stretched apart by gravitational forces, which are pulling it toward the black hole faster and faster — the speed of the cloud has doubled in the last seven years, and it is now moving over 5 million miles per hour. In this short film, astronomer Stefan Gillessen says the cloud “will be elongated and stretched, it will become essentially like spaghetti, and… fall into the black hole.” Or, as one of the best lines we’ve read in a science article in a long time puts it, “The inevitable doom of such a blob of gas is its inexorable tendency towards fragmentation.”

Pretty, pretty outer space. Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)

As Oscar Wilde said, “Aestheticism is a search after the signs of the beautiful. It is the science of the beautiful through which men seek the correlation of the arts. It is, to speak more exactly, the search after the secret of life.” So what better place to turn the lens of aestheticism than images from our universe?

Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have been doing just that though the Aesthetics and Astronomy project. They hoped that by studying how the public reacts to the beauty of nebulas and far-off galaxies, they can foster fascination with the science behind the images as well.

Turns out, however, that people don’t always choose beauty over science.  From The Harvard Crimson:

People responded more positively to images that were accompanied by an explanation, suggesting curiosity about the nature of the celestial event or object pictured, according to [Randall] Smith.

“There is a devaluing when you separate out function and form,” [Kimberly Kowal] Arcand said.

The A&A researchers said they believe that an understanding of the scientific nature of astronomical imagery can let people more fully appreciate its beauty—and conversely, that its aesthetic appeal can increase appreciation of the science.

The group’s research is ongoing, as they try to develop the best ways to convey scientific information through astronomical images, like using the “Cocktail Format” in captions — quick, memorable facts instead of lengthy, descriptive text.

Detail of "Underwater" by Stanley Goldstein, featured in Celestial Matters

And while we’re talking about pretty things in space, we should mention an unusual art exhibit appearing next weekend. Celestial Matters features ten artworks that spent time on the International Space Station. Well-known space tourist Richard Garriott de Cayeux, who hitched a ride on a Soyuz up to the ISS in 2008, commissioned a handful of artists to create pieces for the trip.  They were given weight, size, and material restrictions, but otherwise just instructed to “present a compelling interpretation of space and how it impacts and inspires the human perspective.” The exhibition is by Zero G Art and supports the Challenger Center.

You have to head to the Lower East Side to see it in person, but at least it’s a bit more doable than low-Earth orbit.  (You can see the works online, too.)  The exhibit is on display at the Charles Bank Gallery at 196 Bowery, New York City, from Friday through Sunday, Oct. 14-16, 12 to 7 p.m.

Volcanic activity on the moon, traveling to asteroids, and crashing galaxies are just a few of the topics covered in the ten free lectures you can attend at the National Air & Space Museum over the next few months.  Created in partnership with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian’s Stars series will feature experts and visuals in the Albert Einstein Planetarium. Afterwards, weather permitting, you can get your own view of the sky at the Public Observatory outside the museum.

Albert Einstein Planetarium, Photo Courtesy NASM

The series starts this Saturday with Dr. Gareth Morgan, a geologist with the museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, discussing “The Changing Face of the Moon: Exploring the Ancient History of Giant Impacts and Volcanism.”  Tickets are free but you must reserve one here.  Lecture starts at 5:45 p.m.; observing at 6:45 p.m.

Click over to the full list of lectures and save the date for your favorites.

Among the things one expects to find while sifting through former President Bill Clinton’s stuff, a lost moon rock might be low on the list.  The half ounce piece, one of the Goodwill Moon Rocks brought back on Apollo 17, was given to Arkansas three decades ago and reported missing sometime last year. Wednesday morning, reports the AP, an archivist who was looking through the former governor’s papers opened a box and discovered it. No one knows how it got in there, but the archivist, Bobby Roberts, who directs the Central Arkansas Library System, seems content to set ‘em up and knock ‘em down, “I guess it’s one more Arkansas mystery solved.”

Apollo 11 moon rocks. Photo credit: NASA

This recently found moon rock is one of about 200 small fragments presented as gifts to foreign nations, U.S. states and territories. All were sliced from a single Apollo 17 sample, number 70017, and many are unaccounted for today. Various investigations have been pursued over the years to track down these and other missing moon rocks, including Operation Lunar Eclipse, the joint sting operation between NASA, the U.S. Postal Service and U.S. Customs that recovered the Goodwill Moon Rock originally given to Honduras.  Another somewhat famous escapade includes the interns at Johnson Space Center who smuggled out a 600 pound safe containing samples from all the Apollo missions (the F.B.I. caught them).

NASA’s Office of the Inspector General keeps tabs on any information surfacing about moon rocks, both to collect missing pieces and to sweep counterfeit rocks off the market. Updates are published in the office’s semi-annual reports — just last year they recovered a Goodwill Moon Rock intended as a gift to Cyprus (pdf), however, “The plaque had been intended for delivery by a U.S. diplomat to the people of Cyprus as a gift when hostilities broke out in that country. The plaque had remained in the custody of the diplomat until his death and was recovered from his son.”

Wikipedia’s moon rocks page collects more stories, such as the ill-fated gift to Ireland: the Apollo 11 rock ended up in a landfill. (Their Apollo 17 rock is safe in a museum, at least.) Clearly, some of these will never be recovered.  But sometimes, every once in a while, you can just open a box.

The last time we looked in on the European comet-chaser Rosetta, the spacecraft was still years away from its destination. Well, it’s still years away—three to be precise. And it just went into hibernation. But before going to sleep, Rosetta took this first, very long-distance picture of its target: comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Not much to look at, huh? Don’t worry, the close-ups in 2014 will be much better. And while you’re waiting, you can make your own comet: