Sagittarius A*: The Mysterious Heart of the Milky Way

At the very center of our galaxy — the Milky Way — lurks a cosmic giant, cloaked in darkness, bending space and time itself. It’s called Sagittarius A* (pronounced “Sagittarius A-star”), and it’s not just any black hole. It’s the supermassive black hole anchoring our entire galaxy, holding everything from stars to planets in its invisible grip.

But what exactly is Sagittarius A*? How did we discover it? And why is it so important to understanding both our galaxy and the universe itself?

🌌 What Is Sagittarius A*?

Sagittarius A* is a supermassive black hole located about 26,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. It resides at the very core of the Milky Way and has a mass roughly 4 million times that of our Sun.

Despite its massive size, it’s only about the size of Mercury’s orbit, making it extremely compact for its mass. And like all black holes, it’s invisible — we can’t see it directly because not even light can escape its gravity. But its presence is undeniable.

🔭 How Was Sagittarius A* Discovered?

Astronomers began suspecting something strange was happening at the center of our galaxy in the 1970s, when they detected intense radio waves from a region known as Sagittarius A.

By the 1990s, high-resolution telescopes like the Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Very Large Telescope in Chile allowed…