The Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole

The Milky Way's supermassive black hole

Supermassive black holes - objects with masses of millions or even billions of suns - are found at the nuclei of galaxies. Our Milky Way galaxy, for example, has a massive black hole at its core, albeit one that is relatively quiescent. Despite their reputation for being implacable sinks for matter and energy, both radiation and matter can be ejected from the vicinity of a black hole, often in powerful jets, when it is ringed by a disk of matter and material accretes onto it.