The Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole Might Have Formed 9 Billion Years Ago

This is the first image of Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Scientists are working hard to figure out how old it is and how it grew so massive. Image Credit: EHT

Large galaxies like ours are hosts to Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs.) They can be so massive that they resist comprehension, with some of them having billions of times more mass than the Sun. Ours, named Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), is a little more modest at about four million solar masses.

Astrophysicists have studied Sgr A* to learn more about it, including its age. They say it formed about nine billion years ago.

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