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Nature 425, 908-909 (30 October 2003) | doi:10.1038/425908a

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Black holes: Sparks of interest

Ramesh Narayan1

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Why is the black hole at the centre of our Galaxy so dim, when those in other galaxies can outshine the stars around them? Newly discovered bursts of infrared radiation may give the first clues to what is going on.

At the centre of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*)1, 2. As supermassive black holes go, Sgr A* is a relatively small one: it's four million times more massive than the Sun, but black holes up to 1,000 times more massive are known to exist in other galaxies.

  1. Ramesh Narayan is in the Department of Astronomy and the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
    Email: narayan@cfa.harvard.edu