At the Center of Our Galaxy, There’s a Black Hole Party

Twelve black hole low-mass binaries orbiting Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, appear in this illustration provided by Columbia University, on April 5, 2018. Columbia University/Handout via Reuters

WASHINGTON—Black holes are hanging out at the center of our galaxy by the thousands, according to scientists who have detected a bunch of them in the neighborhood of a supermassive black hole already known to reside at the heart of the Milky Way.

Researchers said data from the NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory allowed them to detect a dozen black holes surrounding Sagittarius A*, the mammoth black hole at the center of our spiral-shaped galaxy.