Not everyone knows that for most of my life I have been an astronomy buff. Was given my first telescope around age 8(?). Built a telescope (six inch Newtonian) in eighth grade. Took daily observations primarily of the sun and planets. And if I had several thousand dollars to spare on whatever a good eight inch reflector with excellent mount would be on my short list. (Meade. Plus a Super-Plossl eyepiece or two. Thanks for asking.)
For sixteen years astronomers have been trying to figure out if yes indeed there is – as had been theorized for decades – a black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. What they did in a nutshell was observe the motion of a tight cluster of stars – one of which passed within one light day of… something. Sure enough – the observations confirm what many had thought.
There is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy – about four million times the mass of our Sun.
Check it out at Astronomy Picture of the Day archive. You do not have to register.
