"Unveiling the Mass of the Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole through Swirling Gas"

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics have accurately determined the mass and radius of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A*. By studying the luminous gas orbiting the black hole, the researchers used data from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer to track electromagnetic emissions and analyze flares observed in 2018, 2021, and 2022. The measurements revealed that Sagittarius A* has a mass of 4.297 million solar masses and a radius smaller than that of Venus' orbit around the sun. These findings provide new insights into the formation of structures in the Galactic Center and strengthen the case for a single black hole at the center of the Milky Way.