Astronomers have detected a mid-infrared flare from the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy for the very first time, and it’s shedding new light on the complex physics driving these energetic outbursts.

Sagittarius A* is the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. As supermassive black holes go, it is fairly quiet. It’s not creating any galaxy-wide tantrums that should worry us. It does flare up though,

A black hole infamous for strange features has once again baffled astronomers, this time with rapid X-ray flashes. What could they be?

The universe could be home to far more supermassive black holes than we realised, according to new research. Many of them are hidden beyond our view, the researchers suggest – which might mean that we have dramatically undercounted how many swirling voids are present in our cosmos.

Researchers found far more hidden black holes than previously known, indicating plenty of behemoths lurking in thick clouds of gas and dust.

Black holes themselves emit no light, but the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies are often surrounded by huge clouds of material. It's this material, heated by friction and gravity as it swirls in orbit around the black hole, that blazes with light.

A new study suggests more supermassive black holes may be lurking in the universe than previously thought. Astronomers from the University of Southampton have discovered that 35 per cent of these enormous entities—some of which are billions of times heavier than the sun—remain undetected.