Astronomers have discovered a mysterious, celestial body making an orbit around a gargantuan black hole at the center of the Milky Way. According to Space.com, the astronomers identified the object as a gas cloud which made its "tight" orbit more than a decade ago.

The report sparks public interest, since black holes had always been one of the universe's most bizarre configurations. As NASA puts it, a black hole is a "place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out."

The space agency explained that this phenomenon happens when matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. That said, black holes can have masses more than one million suns combined, while it can be as small as an atom.

At this point, the gas cloud is specifically orbiting the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Space.com reported that the object has been called G1, following the earlier-identified G2, which was also hypothesized to be a gas cloud. Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany were said to take this viewpoint.

On the other hand, the outlet noted that researchers from the University of California in Los Angeles contended that the earlier G2 is "a star surrounded by a layer of dust and gas."

Now this brings us to question: Can Sagittarius A actually suck G1 into oblivion?

Well, chances may be negative, as this black hole "doesn't dine on material often," wrote Space.com. But an earlier report from News.com.au cited NASA's NuSTAR telescope, which was able to capture the moments following the galaxy's "chowing-down" of a nearby star. Accordingly, the black hole even "burped."

The National Geographic described black holes as cold remnants of previous stars, the last stage in the celestial bodies' evolution. Stars at the edge of their age detonate into cataclysms called "supernovae," ultimately leaving cold remnants that do not allow further fusion of material. These are the precursors of a yet-to-be-born black hole.

Meanwhile, NASA assured that the Earth will not fall into a black hole since no such thing is "close enough" to the solar system. Accordingly, the sun will never turn into a black hole, since it's not big enough.

For more information about black holes, head over here.

Watch SpaceRip's documentary of the Sagittarius A* and the largest black holes below. NASA's illustration of an actual eating of a star (by a black hole) follows.