The Milky Way's supermassive black hole is spinning incredibly fast and at the wrong angle. Scientists may finally know why.

Astronomers studying the Milky Way's supermassive black hole have found "compelling evidence" that could finally help explain its mysterious past.

Located 26,000 light-years away in the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A* is a gargantuan tear in space-time that is 4 million times the mass of our sun and 14.6 million miles (23.5 million kilometers) wide.

But how the black hole came to be, and why it is spinning surprisingly fast and out of orientation with the rest of the galaxy, remain unknown. Now, data from the telescope that first captured the black hole's image in 2022 has revealed a clue: The Sagittarius A* we see today was born from a cataclysmic merger with another giant black hole billions of years ago — and it's still showing the effects of this violent collision. The researchers published their findings Sept. 6 in the journal Nature Astronomy.

"This discovery paves the way for our understanding of how supermassive black holes grow and evolve," study lead author Yihan Wang, an astrophysicist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), said in a statement. "The misaligned high spin of Sgr A* indicates that it may have merged with another black hole, dramatically altering its amplitude and orientation of spin."

Despite making up a scant 0.0003% of the Milky Way's mass, Sagittarius A* is a powerful engine that periodically sucks matter in before spitting it out at near-light-speeds, creating a feedback process that has shaped our galaxy since its beginnings.

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Scientists think the gigantic black hole started out much like others, born from the collapse of a giant star or gas cloud before gorging on anything that came too close. After swelling to a monstrous size, black holes can even feed on other supermassive black holes.