Space missions . Solar System . Volcanoes 101 . Site map . 01.05.00 Galaxy NGC 1232, seen face on, is thought to look much like our Milky Way.
New stars continue to form along outer fringes of the spiral arms.
ESO W hat a difference a couple of years makes. In the same time frame, astronomers have undergone a similar transition of thinking. Once looking far off into the deep black in search of answers to black holes, the big thinkers of space have returned, if not to Earth, at least to the cosmic back yard, solidifying the theory that there's big ol' gravity monster just 26,000 light-year away, in the very center of our home galaxy . The revelation has researchers scrambling to study what is by far the closest black hole around. The answers are many, each tenuous enough so as to present a host of other questions.