There is a monster directly below your feet right now.
Directly beneath the flat disc of the Milky Way, about 26,000 light-years from where you are sitting, something extraordinary lurks at the galactic centre. Astronomers call it Sagittarius A*. It packs roughly four million times the mass of our Sun into a region so compact that not a single photon of light can claw its way back out once it crosses the edge. For decades we knew it was there, but we could only infer it. Then in 2022 a global network of radio telescopes — effectively turning the entire Earth into one enormous lens — captured its shadow. An actual image. Not an artist's impression. The real thing. And almost every large galaxy we can see is thought to carry one of these at its heart, including our own. Follow Deep Field Vault for more of the universe delivered straight to you.