KnowraRobert BrownRobert BrownRobert Brown is an American astronomer who co-discovered the compact radio source Sagittarius A* with Bruce Balick.BriefConnectSagittarius A*: A compact radio source associated with the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Brown and Bruce Balick identified this compact radio source in 1974.Supermassive black hole: A black hole with a mass of millions to billions of times the Sun’s mass. Later evidence established that Sagittarius A* is powered by one at the Galactic center.Andrea Ghez: An American astronomer who led observations of stars orbiting the Milky Way’s central black hole. Her measurements transformed the interpretation of the compact source Brown co-discovered.Radio source: An astronomical object or region that emits detectable radio-frequency radiation. Sagittarius A* was first identified through its radio emission.Sagittarius A East: A supernova remnant located in the Sagittarius A complex near the Milky Way’s center. Its extended radio emission formed part of the complex surrounding Brown’s compact discovery.Bruce Balick: An American astronomer who co-discovered Sagittarius A* with Robert Brown. Balick was Brown’s collaborator in identifying the compact Galactic-center source.Stellar orbits around Sagittarius A*: The measured paths of stars orbiting the compact object at the Milky Way’s center. These orbits provided decisive evidence for the mass concentrated at Brown’s radio source.Reinhard Genzel: A German astrophysicist who led studies of stellar motion around the Milky Way’s central black hole. His independent observational program established the mass associated with Sagittarius A*.Angular resolution: The ability of an instrument to distinguish two nearby points in an image. High angular resolution showed that Sagittarius A* was exceptionally compact.Sagittarius A West: An ionized gas structure near the Galactic center, also called the Minispiral. Its radio emission lies around Sagittarius A* and complicated early observations.Show all 26Linked from 1 pageSagittarius A*Related: His work helped distinguish the compact source from surrounding radio emission.