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Nature 438, 32-33 (3 November 2005) | doi:10.1038/438032a; Published online 2 November 2005

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Astronomy: Light on a dark place

Christopher Reynolds1

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The sharpest images ever taken of matter around the probable black hole at the centre of our Galaxy bring us within grasp of a crucial test of general relativity — a picture of the black hole's 'point of no return'.

Ever since its discovery in 1974, a strange source of radio waves in the constellation of Sagittarius has been suspected of flagging the presence of a massive black hole at the centre of our Galaxy1. On page 62 of this issue, Shen et al.2 report the highest-resolution images yet of this source, Sgr A*.

  1. Christopher Reynolds is in the Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
    Email: chris@astro.umd.edu

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