<a href="http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/blackhole1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1125" title="blackhole1" src="http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/blackhole1.jpg" alt="" width="475" height="184" /></a>

There's a super-massive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, and it's four million times heavier than our Sun.

<em>"Although we think of black holes as somehow threatening, in the sense that if you get too close to one you are in trouble, they may have had a role in helping galaxies to form - not just our own, but all galaxies." They had a role in bringing matter together and if you had a high enough density of matter then you have the conditions in which stars could form.Thus the first generation of stars and galaxies could have come into existence".</em>

More super-massive thoughts over at the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7774287.stm" target="_blank">BBC</a>