Trillions of Asteroids Orbit Milky Way's Black Hole

In an article I wrote yesterday about the supermassive black hole at the core of the Milky Way, I presented a theory suggesting that the X-ray flares produced by Sagittarius A* are caused by asteroids falling through the event horizon. Here are more details of that study.

Now, the image in this post is a rendition that experts with NASA and the Chandra X-ray Observatory science team compiled, based on available data. It depicts a vast number of asteroids (astronomers say that trillions may exist in reality) circling the black hole.

If indeed so many space rocks are available for the dark behemoth to eat, then it may also be true that even consuming hundreds of them per year for 10 billion years would not actually put a dent in the massive asteroid clouds. As such, the flares could continue to occur for billions of years more.

Chandra data appear to indicate that only asteroids passing within 100 million miles of the black hole, roughly the distance separating Earth from the Sun, would get sucked inside the event horizon.