> You're correct in saying […] a real thing.
This is, indeed, how science works. "All models are wrong", as they say. I'm not sure what you're trying to push back against.
This is, indeed, how science works. "All models are wrong", as they say. I'm not sure what you're trying to push back against.
IIUC you're basically talking about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsingular_black_hole_models which don't seem to be fully mainstream, nor supported by any observed evidence.
Somewhat related and maybe interesting to you: https://www.llnl.gov/article/40576/black-hole-loses-its-appe...
So we either don't understand the gas cloud or our SgA* black hole model isn't correct (or some combination of both.) In either case, we seemed quite sure prior to the event. I think anomalies like this are where the really interesting information lies and we should be more humble wrt the veracity of our current models.
The galactic center is one of the noisiest portions of the galaxy and most difficult for us to look at. (Relatively) high densities of gas further obscure things within them. It's a pretty huge leap to go from the fairly obvious answer - we weren't quite right about everything inside of G2 - to "Black holes as we think of them don't exist."
And, the most recent evidence we have is... that we got the composition of G2 wrong. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.04543