Black Hole Spitballs

Black Hole at Galaxy's Heart Launches Planet-Size 'Spitballs'
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/black-hole-spitballs-planets-galaxies-stars-space-science/
National Geographic
By: Nadia Drake
January 4, 2017

This black hole at the center of our galaxy is shooting out spitballs the size of planets. One spitball may be going through space several light years away from earth. It's weird as black holes tend to suck things up rather than spit them out. Our galaxy could be populated by hundreds of millions of these fragments that are the direct remnants of stars. Every 10,000 years or so, a star gets too close to Sagittarius A and when that happens, the star's life is over. Afterwards, the disrupted starstuff begins to reconnect. They ball themselves up and form planet-size clumps of gas and dust. Of the planetoids thrown out of the black hole, about 95% were thrown out of the galaxy and into the cosmic hinterlands separating the Milky Way from the next galaxy over. If scientists are correct about how frequently Sagittarius A shreds passing stars, there could be millions of these almost-planets in the Milky Way.

I think it would be cool to find out more about these planetoids. They seem cool and they would help us to understand a little bit more of the galaxy. Every time scientists find out more about the galaxy that no one knew about before, it shows that there's still so much to learn. This is a positive topic and can definitely talk about it in school. It might change people lives in that they decide on a profession in this field, finding out more about the universe. It doesn't change mine much, but I still love astronomy. This is probably one of the more amusing things on the universe, but it's cool nonetheless. I hope in the future that we will find out more about these black holes and exactly how many stars are shredded by Sagittarius A.