Sagittarius A* is a supermassive black hole at the Milky Way center with a mass about 4.3 million times that of the Sun and a diameter near 24 million kilometres. The black hole is currently dormant but becomes active when it accretes large quantities of gas and dust into an accretion disk. Activation requires a massive supply of matter, and the next major feeding event is expected when the Milky Way collides with the Large Magellanic Cloud in roughly 2.4 billion years. Stellar-mass black holes form from collapsing stars and are far smaller than supermassive black holes.
At the very heart of our galaxy, a giant monster is sleeping. The supermassive black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, has a mass 4.3 million times larger than the sun and measures around 24 million kilometres (15 million miles) across. For now, this colossal void is dormant, but scientists don't think it will stay that way forever. Now, researchers have predicted exactly when it is likely to wake up.
A supermassive black hole becomes active when it starts to swallow vast quantities of gas and dust from the galaxy around it. But for this to happen, a black hole needs to be supplied with a mind-boggling quantity of matter to feed on. The black hole at the centre of the Milky Way will wake up for its next feeding frenzy when we collide with a dwarf galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud.
However, these so-called stellar-mass black holes are pipsqueaks compared to the vast voids that sit at the core of nearly every galaxy. While a stellar mass black hole might be one to 10 times the mass of our sun, a supermassive black hole can be millions or even billions of times bigger. But despite how big they are, most of these giants are almost impossible for even our most powerful telescopes to directly detect.
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