Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Astronomy

Light on a dark place

Nature volume 438, pages 32–33 (2005)Cite this article

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*. These observations provide strong evidence that Sgr A* is indeed a black hole, and afford a glimpse of the behaviour of the matter that is about to flow into it. They are also a further step towards attaining an image of the shadow around the edge of a black hole, a powerful and classic test of the general theory of relativity.

This is a preview of subscription content

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Hungry mouth.

References

  1. Balick, B. & Brown, R. L. Astrophys. J. 194, 265–270 (1974).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Shen, Z. -Q., Lo, K. Y., Liang, M. -C., Ho, P. T. P. & Zhao, J. -H. Nature 438, 62–64 (2005).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Ghez, A. M. et al. Astrophys. J. 620, 744–757 (2005).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Schoedel, R. et al. Nature 419, 694–696 (2002).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Garcia, M. et al. Astrophys. J. 553, L47–L50 (2001).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Narayan, R. & Heyl, J. S. Astrophys. J. 574, L139–L142 (2002).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Falcke, H., Melia, F. & Agol, E., Astrophys. J. 528, L13–L16 (2000).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Affiliations

  1. the Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, Maryland, USA

    Christopher Reynolds

Authors
  1. Christopher Reynolds
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Reynolds, C. Light on a dark place. Nature 438, 32–33 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/438032a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/438032a

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing