The center of the Milky Way is a pretty happenin’ place. As with most other galaxies, there is a supermassive black hole there. Ours is named Sagittarius A*. Not only does Sgr A* try to eat anything that goes near it, the area around it is a good place for new stars to form. Since a black hole has such a huge gravitational footprint, it tries to suck up anything that comes within its reach. All of this gravity can attract a huge amount of matter, which bunches up around the black hole and heats up. The bunched up matter is called an accretion disk, and because of friction the gas and dust heats up, emitting infrared light. Looking at the center of the Milky Way doesn’t reveal much in visible light, but radio, infrared, and X-ray telescopes can tell us a lot about the black hole lurking there.