AstroAlert: Trolling the Monster in the Heart of the Milky Way

Hi everyone,

There’s a great article in today’s New York Times about new, very compelling evidence for a supermassive black hole lurking in the heart of the Milky Way.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, a team led by astronomer Reinhard Genzel has peered closer to the black hole’s edge than ever before. They observed clumps of gas zipping around at nearly one-third the speed of light, held in the gravitational clutches of an invisible object weighing more than four million Suns.

If you’d like to know more, you can read the New York Times article, or or watch the excellent video below that accompanies it.

If you’re interested, you can also read the full scientific paper.

Best regards,

Michael

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