The Enormity of It All

When I was young, I had no difficulty conceiving of an infinite universe. But I think my intuition is still limited to Newtonian physics of the most amateurish sort. I certainly find it a struggle to wrap my feeble mind around such concepts as bulk universe, the big bang, black holes, 'branes, super strings and the like.

And now we learn that there is probably a black hole, a super-massive one at that, half the size of the diameter of the earth's orbit, smack dab in the centre of our very own galaxy.

"These observations provide strong evidence that Sgr A is indeed a black hole, and afford a glimpse of the behavior of the matter that is about to flow into it," said Christopher Reynolds, of the University of Maryland in the United States, in a commentary in the journal.

He described the findings as a further step toward capturing an image of the shadow around the edge of a black hole, which would be a classic test of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

The theory predicts that massive bodies -- planets, stars or black holes -- actually twist time and space around as they spin.

Black holes may twist time and space, but the concept twists this poor, feeble mind, as well.