The Discovery of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Milky Way

Theory

• According to the Scientific American website, astronomers have been watching an object at the center of the Milky Way since the late 1970s. This object, known as the Sagittarius A-star, is abnormally bright when viewed through a radio telescope. This led many astronomers to believe that it was fueled by the gravity of a black hole.

Study

• A 16 year study of the Sagittarius A-star was carried out by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany. Due to the difficulties involved in observing black holes, the study tracked the movements of 28 stars circling the center of the Milky Way to determine what lay at the galaxy's core.

Observation

• "Observations were made using the 3.5 m New Technology Telescope and the 8.2 m Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile," says the BBC News website. The stellar orbits observed at the center of the Milky Way proved that something massive, or supermassive, lay at the galaxy's core.

Confirmation

• Astronomers are now confident that the Sagittarius A-star is a supermassive black hole. Various teams of astronomers, including those from Harvard University, UCLA and the Max Planck Institute, continue to study this phenomenon. According to PhysicsWorld.com, supermassive black holes are now believed to exist at the center of most, if not all, galaxies.