Scientists have finally confirmed that the massive object at the heart of our galaxy is, in fact, a supermassive black hole.
Researchers used the European Southern Observatory’s sensitive GRAVITY instrument on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to observe infrared radiation flares coming from the accretion disc around Sagittarius A* — the massive object at the center of our galaxy. Scientists think that most galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their center, but they’d never before had the data and observations to prove it.
To measure the effects of gravity near to a black hole, scientists needed to observe an object actually traveling close to it. They found their mark in a small star called S2 whose orbit takes it deep within Sagittarius A*’s gravity well every 16 years. As they watched, they saw three bright flares traveling around the black hole’s event horizon at about 30 percent of the speed of light — around 216 million miles per hour.
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