On the 13th February 1974, astrophysicists had a major breakthrough. They had discovered what was found to be a massive black hole in the middle of our Milky Way and they called it Sagittarius A*. This black hole is 26 million lightyears away from planet Earth. It is called Sagittarius A* because it is in the star constellation ‘Sagittarius’. Have in mind that one lightyear is about 6 trillion miles. A lightyear is the distance light travels over one Earth year. This black hole spans a diameter of over 13,670,000 miles of space (the Earth is 238,855 miles away from the moon).

Physicists believe that Sagittarius A* is over ten thousand years old. It was discovered by a Physicist called Karl Jansky who worked in a telephone company. His job was to look out for any static disruptions that may have occurred, most of which were due to thunderstorms in the Earth’s atmosphere. However one day, Jansky detected a different kind of static disruption which was not originating from Earth. He found that it was coming from a distant object, 26 million lightyears away. Physicists identified this to be a black hole by measuring small distortions in space-time. Black holes are the result of dead and decaying stars, which have collapsed in on themselves to become entities of infinite gravity, pulling and absorbing anything that falls within it’s ‘event horizon’. This includes absolutely all matter and even light. Sagittarius A* was discovered only three years after the very first black hole was discovered in 1971, called Cygnus X-1. Since then, about a dozen more black holes have been discovered in our galaxy.

Sagittarius A* appears to be the nucleus of the Milky way. It is formed from several enormous dust and gas clouds. These clouds rotate around the centre of the black hole extremely quickly, eventually falling into the centre at velocities as high as one thousand kilometres per second.

To sum up, the discovery of Sagittarius A* was immensely exciting and important because it changed our perception of what is out there and increased our understanding of the true size of the universe. We have evolved to invent equipment and techniques that enable us to investigate space and understand our place in it. Further advances in technology and ideas will ensure that we continue to make many more new and thrilling findings into the future.

By Kamran Seward