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

Black holes tend to be a giant dark spot – surrounded by a gas cloud that is heated to billions of degrees by friction and compression as it falls into the hole. They have a disk like Saturn except that disk glows brighter than the rest of the galaxy combined. 

Edit: in the case of the Milky Way the brightness is just star density, our black holes aren’t compressing quite enough matter to do super flashy stuff. Also, black holes are not that big. The one in the center on the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*, is smaller than Mercury’s orbit. IIRC there are several stars orbiting it that are larger than that (but far from being heavier of course).