At the heart of the Milky Way, just 27,000 light-years from Earth, there is a supermassive black hole with a mass of more than 4 million suns. Nearly all galaxies contain a supermassive black hole, and many of them are much more massive.

Most of these astrophysical monsters are stars with various behavioral issues, such as explosive supernovae or ridiculously powerful (and tempestuous) magnetars. In a recent The Universe column, I wrote about particularly nasty cosmic nightmares called active galaxies.

Huge eruptions from the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole in the distant past may have sterilized much of the inner galaxy

The image of supermassive black hole Sagittarius A * was created using data from the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. At the same time several telescopes, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory,

It is no secret that at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, lies a supermassive black hole better known as Sagittarius A*. In fact, NASA has provided more details about it on

A near-infrared view of the stars near the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Credit: ESO / S. Gillessen et al. Astronomers suspect the giant black hole at the heart of the Milky Way may have collided with another black hole in just the past 10 million years.