Two things, one is black holes don’t “suck in” anything. They have exactly the same mass as their components. Yes, gravity has compressed them to the point that at their surface light gets bent back in, but you can safely orbit a black hole with no trouble.
Second, for an astronomy article, this one misses a big point: This gas cloud had its encounter with the Milky Way singularity some 50,000 years ago. We’re just lucky in that we happen to be in a position technologically to see the sequence after the fact, since the photons that reflect this event are just now reaching us. /pedantic
Was thinking the same thing it’s already happened we’re just watching the movie now (darned late releases). The other thing I was surprised about is they didn’t mention the possibility of any X-ray type emissions which I’ve heard can occur when things are “gobbled”.
“...you can safely orbit a black hole with no trouble.”
How often have you done that?
Black holes suck in Mecca, but then, everything sucks in Mecca.
Maybe you can. X radiation and gravitational sheering effect does a number on the hull of most spacecraft that try that maneuver!
Are you sure? Because I saw a movie once in which a black hole sucked things in and you know the movies are pretty much based on sound science... ;)