“This image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the center of our Galaxy, with a supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* for short) in the center.” - nasa.gov

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for your supermassive science related question. Alright, listen, this thing is huge. It’s supermassive. My guess is it would take the guys from Sons of Anarchy two, maybe three days to ride around the perimeter using their superfast bikes that they do not normally use because they are too fast for normal life so they keep them in a special garage in the valley, normally. And I got to tell you Anonymous, this thing, this supermassive black hole, it is not getting any smaller. As you can see in the picture I have provided for your edification, this black hole is a filthy glut. Known, by me, as the “Don Rickles of the Galaxy,” this black hole has been decimating, violating and generally messy-fried-chicken-eating the shit out of a whole bunch of asteroids.

“How big is it, though?” you ask.”No. You’re not listening to me. Not how big. How many miles wide?” you say. Well Anonymous, that is a tough one. If the sun is about 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Milky Way Galaxy is about 80,000 to 120,000 light-years across, then I would estimate that this super massive black hole in the center is about this many miles wide:

Now, I know what you are thinking Anonymous, and I do not blame you. But please, save your judgement and your curse words for another day, for today you are going to learn. Go with me: Take the number of years “Greg’s Mom” had been alive at the time of this picture (46), add that to the number of years “Greg’s Dad” had been alive at the time of this picture (52), then add to that the number of years “Greg” had been alive at the time of this picture (16), take that sum to the power of how ever many hours “Greg’s Mom” was in labor with “Greg” (37), multiply that by the approximated amount on a scale from 1 to 10 that “Greg’s Dad” was still turned on by “Greg’s Mom” at the time that this picture was taken (3), divide by the number of hands that are being held in this picture (4), subtract the year this picture was taken (1988), then finally add that answer to the ten digit land-line phone number that this family has had since 1971 and will be the only phone number that “Greg” will ever remember by heart because of the age of cell phones we live in, which will really make him angry when in 2015 at the age of 43 he is arrested for being drunk and disorderly and is forced to call “Greg’s Dad,” now 79 years of age, at 4AM to come get him from the John Francis Rague Jailhouse in Dubuque Iowa (I cannot disclose this number on account of the fact that it has been unlisted since 1992 when, for a short time, “Greg’s Mom” became paralyzingly afraid of prank callers. My suggestion is to try all possible number combinations). This, my friend, should yield the exact number you are looking for.

I won’t insult you by doing out the math. I know you are perfectly capable of doing it yourself, but if, for whatever reason, you do not have graph paper and an electric pencil at the ready, I will leave you with this: If you look at that picture for long enough, take in the weight and distance and time and what that all means about family and people in relation to one another, I am sure that the same number, the exact distance across the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy in miles, will come to you eventually. You are more than welcome to call me Heisenberg any time you like.

I hope this helped. And I hope you win.

GJAS