Milky Way may NOT have a supermassive black hole at its centre

"They suggest our galaxy might actually rotate around an enormous clump of mysterious dark matter. Dark matter is the invisible substance that can't be seen by our telescopes but is estimated to make up over a quarter of the universe. According to the experts, a super-dense clump of dark matter would explain both the violent dance of stars near the galactic core and our galaxy's gentle rotation."

"Study co-author Dr Carlos Argüelles, of the Institute of Astrophysics La Plata, says: 'We are not just replacing the black hole with a dark object; we are proposing that the supermassive central object and the galaxy's dark matter halo are two manifestations of the same, continuous substance.' The key to this surprising suggestion lies in a very specific form of dark matter composed of particles called fermions, which are extremely light subatomic particles."

The Milky Way may lack a supermassive black hole at its centre. An alternative model describes a massive clump of dark matter forming a compact fermionic core surrounded by a diffuse halo that together reproduce both central stellar orbits and the galaxy's rotation curve. The compact core would account for the high velocities of S-stars near the galactic centre. The extended halo would produce the gentle, nearly flat rotation at large radii. The central object and the halo are treated as a single continuous dark-matter structure composed of ultralight fermions.

Read at Mail Online