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Sgr A was discovered in 1974 using radio telescopes. It was not possible to observe stars near Sgr A because of vast amounts of dust at the galactic centre. In 2002 a team reported that they had succeeded in tracking a Star S2 over a period of ten years orbiting an unseen object. This object is believed to be the black hole Sgr A and has a diameter smaller than Mercury's orbital diameter! The two documents here show how to calculate the mass of the black hole.
Sagittarius A is the black hole at the centre of our galaxy. It is easy to calculate the mass of Sagittarius from recent data.
These two downloadable documents (links below) are suitable for advanced GCSE or AS physics (or their equivalent).
The exercise is useful for practice in using large numbers and astronomical units such as light days.
Source: Chandra (www.universetoday.com)
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