I read these forums a lot, but this is my first time posting. I read the article below this morning and I was wondering....could the black hole that sits in the middle of the Milky Way reach out and give us a "love tap"?...I realize that statistically I am in far more danger going to my mailbox this morning but I find this article interesting and was wondering if anyone had opinions.

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/l...eath-star.aspx

The article you pointed to has the ejected material from the host galaxy shooting pretty close to perpendicular from the plane. That won't be aimed at us (ever).

It would be very unlikely but possible for a double neutron star to pass close to Sgr A* and gobble one, and propel the other in our direction. That's probably the closest you'll find to our central black hole being a threat to us.

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Forming opinions as we speak

The jets come from the rotational poles of the black hole. To get to us, the jet would need to be aimed at us, which isn't the case for our galaxy's black hole. If our BH's axis was that tilted, it would produce all kind of gravitational effects that would be obvious throughout the galaxy, and we've seen plenty of evidence that the Milky Way is pretty normal as barred-spiral galaxies go.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

What about the impending meeting with Andromeda, give or take 5 billion years. Should I worry about that SMBH snacking on us?

If we're still around then, I'll let you know.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

We'll have some other issues with our own Sun before then, but yes, that is another of the eventual concerns.

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Forming opinions as we speak

If I'm around in 5 billion years, I'll just retire in Florida and forget the rest.

There won't be a Florida then.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Welcome to the forum!

Black holes don't have any hair, but I guess they can generate these arms... or jets, which are perpendicular to their plane of rotation. Being in the plane or disk of our galaxy, we are safe from such jets or fountains, and those generated by our central supermassive black hole are pretty mild anyway.

Besides, we are about 30,000 lightyears from the galactic center, and we orbit the galaxy once every 225 million years. Our System has orbited the galaxy about 20 times now, and we're still here, so.... killer phenomena don't seem to be very common.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Then I'll make my way to 'New Florida'.

So many haters raining on my parade. You guys are making my future plans difficult to realize.