Black holes · Supermassive black hole
Sagittarius A*
26,700 light-years · Light crosses it in 85 seconds
- Across
- 25.4 million km
- Vs Earth
- 18× Sun
- Mass
- 4.3 million Suns
Open Sagittarius A* in Cosmic Scale
About
Sagittarius A* is the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, 26,700 light-years away. We knew it was there long before we saw it, because we could watch stars whipping around something invisible and enormously heavy.
The black hole at the centre of our Milky Way, imaged in 2022.
At a glance
| Mass | 4.3 million Suns |
|---|---|
| Distance | 26,700 light-years |
| Imaged | 2022, Event Horizon Telescope |
| Nobel Prize | 2020 |
Did you know
- The star S301 whips around it every 8.7 years at over 8% of the speed of light, the fastest star known.
- Tracking those stars for decades won Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez the Nobel Prize in Physics.
- It is quiet as black holes go, swallowing only a trickle of gas.
Simulations
- A star torn apart — How a black hole shreds a star that strays too close, and lights up a galaxy's heart
- How black holes are made — How the core of a giant star falls in on itself and closes off from the universe
- Wormhole — A tunnel through space: how one could be held open, and what it would look like
- White hole — The mirror image of a black hole: how one could be made, and what it would look like
- Warp drive — Carrying a ship faster than light by moving space itself: what it would take, and the view from inside
- Hawking evaporation — A black hole's slow glow and last flash: how it would end, and what it would look like