Hole or Halo at the Milky Way's Core: The Black Hole–Dark Matter Spike Dilemma

We explore a provocative 2026 proposal that Sagittarius A* might be a super-dense dark matter core wrapped around a central black hole, a model that could explain both the galaxy's outer rotation and the inner shadow seen by the Event Horizon Telescope. We weigh the fine-tuning, the thud problem, and S2's orbital constraints, and discuss how future missions like the COSI gamma-ray telescope could test for the dark matter spike. Along the way we consider how this kind of unified view reshapes how we interpret the night sky and the data that probe it.

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