A nova origin of the gas cloud at the Galactic Center ?
  The recent discovery by Gillessen and collaborators of a cloud of gas falling
towards the Galactic Center on a highly eccentric orbit, diving nearly straight
into the immediate neighborhood of the central supermassive black hole, raises
the important question of its origin. Several models have already been
proposed. Here we suggest that a recent nova outburst has ejected a ring-like
shell of gas. Viewed at high inclination, that could account for the mass, head
and tail structure, and the unusually high eccentricity of the observed cloud
in a natural way, even as the nova moves on an orbit quite normal for the young
stars in the close neighborhood of the Galactic Center. We illustrate this by
calculating orbits for the head and tail parts of the ejecta and the nova that
has produced it. We briefly discuss some of the questions that this model, if
true, raises about the stellar environment close to the Galactic Center.
