Revealing the Heart of the Galaxy: The Milky Way and its Black Hole
"In his captivating book Sanders gives an authoritative and entertaining, easy to read account of this 'detective story', from the beginnings in the last century to the most recent developments. As he tells his story, Robert Sanders conveys to the reader the fascination of research, the often unexpected discoveries, but also the meandering path of the research towards better understanding and knowledge, including the 'human' side of some of the major players in the story. I highly recommend this book to readers who want to understand and get captivated by one of the highlight discoveries of the modern astronomy." - Reinhard Genzel, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, Germany"This book gives a personal enthusiastic and well informed view of the exciting discoveries in astronomy since 1950. Major advances in astronomy are led by technology, but the theme of this engagingly written book is the development of ideas, and how they are tested and refined as new observations become possible. Sanders' central subject is the revelation of the structure of our Milky Way galaxy with its "rather small" four million solar mass central black hole. However the reader will gain also insight into how astronomy and science develop via world-wide cooperation and debate. It is fun to read!" - Donald Lynden-Bell, Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge