Large Black Hole Found at Center of the Galaxy

Scientists have discovered at the center of our galaxy a huge black hole, a mysterious celestial object that sucks in everything around it, including light. By observing the orbit of a star around the invisible gravitational field, an international team of scientists reported in the Oct. 10 Nature that it has eliminated other possibilities that might explain the phenomenon.

“It is a great step forward,” said astronomer Reinhard Genzel, of the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics near Munich, Germany, who led the team. “We have been able to exclude some still possible alternative configurations.... There is nothing left that one would consider realistic and possible, other than a black hole.”

Astronomers have been gathering information about black holes, which are detected by measuring their effect on nearby stars or the activity around their edges, for more than 20 years.

There has been growing evidence of a massive black hole, more than a million times the mass of the sun, in the center of our galaxy and others, but Genzel and his team believe their research is the best proof so far. Black holes, like the one in the center of the Milky Way, are thought to be the remains of dead quasars.