Astronomers cut through the galactic center’s glare to map a supernova beside our black hole

The center of our galaxy is a blinding tangle of overlapping X-ray sources, and buried in it sits Sagittarius A East, the supernova remnant pressed against the Milky Way's black hole. By subtracting away the contaminating light, astronomers have now built the first clean X-ray maps of it, revealing its elements, its lopsided shape, and its grip on the gas that feeds our black hole.