In the next few months, a roving gas cloud will spiral ever closer to the supermassive black hole situated at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, eventually colliding with it in a rare display of cosmic activity. Whenever the collision takes place – researchers expect that it will happen in the spring, but conjectures about the collision date have been wrong before – astronomers at the University of Michigan will likely be the first to know.

According to U of M, the university’s team of astronomers is the only unit currently tracking the status of the impending collision on a day-to-day basis. The team has been entrusted with the Swift telescope, an orbiting NASA tool, and is keeping a keen eye trained on the “mysterious gas cloud” that seems to be tilting ever more toward the Milky Way’s central black hole. The gas cloud, called G2, has a mass of about three times that of Earth.

The black hole the cloud is spiraling toward, meanwhile, is the Milky Way’s lone supermassive black hole. Scientists contend that similar black holes could be found at the center of most galaxies. The Milky Way’s black hole, called Sagittarius A, is dimmer than the black holes situated at the centers of similar elliptical or spiral galaxies. However, the fact that Sagittarius A is inherently “fainter” than other similar black holes won’t change the spectacle of watching it swallow a gas cloud.

And spectacle it will be. Astronomers have never been given a chance like this one, to see how a faint black hole absorbs and consumes matter, and may never get an opportunity like it again. By using x-rays, University of Michigan astronomers will be able to watch matter as it disappears into the black hole, and since the Swift telescope will be taking daily images of Sagittarius A for the foreseeable future, the collision won’t be missed.

Precisely how visually spectacular the collision will be, however, will depend almost entirely on the overall composition of G2 – something astronomers have not been able to parse using their current technology levels. If the cloud is entirely composed of gas, U of M astronomers believe that it would singlehandedly help make Sagittarius A a brighter supermassive black hole – perhaps as much as 10,000 times brighter. The Sagittarius A region would glow on x-ray scans for years to come, with G2’s gaseous composition being slowly and steadily eaten up by the black hole. If G2 is made up of something other than gas – if the gas cloud is concealing a dead star, for example – then the fireworks display at Sagittarius A could end up being distinctly less impressive.