Swirling Center

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 September 27, 2011

Stars and gas swirl around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy in this image, which combines views in several wavelengths. Red and green show radio waves from gas in giant clouds around the black hole, while blue, from the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope, shows stars. The black hole, which is about 4 million times as massive as the Sun, is too small to see with even the most powerful telescopes. The entire complex is about 27,000 light-years away, above the "teapot" of the constellation Sagittarius. [NRAO/AUI] We have a full feature on the Milky Way's black hole and the environment around it in theSeptember/October 2011 issue of StarDate magazine.

Find out more in our radio program entitled

 Milky Way’s Heart II