Edge of darkness: looking into the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way
by Robin McKie from on (#2DZTZ)
It would take a telescope as big as a planet to see the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. But a team of scientists think they know how to do it
At the heart of our galaxy, a vast black hole is devouring matter from the dust clouds that surround it. Little by little, expanses of interstellar material are being swallowed up by this voracious galactic carnivore that, in the process, has reached a mass that is 4m times that of our sun.
The Milky Way's great black hole is 25,000 light years distant, surrounded by dense clusters of stars, shrouded by interstellar dust and, like all other black holes, incapable of emitting light.
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