If the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole, why is the center of the Milky Way the brightest part of every photograph of it?

Question

Wouldn’t it be, you know, a big black spot?

In: Other

Answer 1

It is supermassive but compared to the galaxy still not very large. Its diameter (event horizon) is only about 1/5 of the distance of mercury to the sun. Compared to the whole galaxy this is abysmally small. The Milky Way is 500 billion times larger than the supermassive black hole at its center.