The thought that an omnivorous supermassive black hole exists at the centre of our galaxy, is enough to make the bravest soul feel a little vulnerable.

But now scientists have discovered that there are actually tens of thousands of black holes spinning at the heart of the Milky Way.

Scientists now think that all large galaxies have a supermassive black hole in the middle, and astronomers first picked up a signal from Sagittarius A*, the behemoth at the centre of our own galaxy, in 1931.

For around 20 years, astrophysicists have predicted that thousands of smaller black holes should exist around Sagittarius A* because it is surrounded by enormous halos of gas and dust, which provide a perfect breeding ground for the birth and, ultimately the death, of stars.

As stars die, some collapse in on themselves forming new black holes. Supermassive black holes can also pull in black holes from elsewhere, but until now the search for them has proved fruitless.

“There are supposed to be 10,000 to 20,000 of these things in a region just six light years wide that no one has been able to find,” said Dr Chuck Hailey, co-director of the Columbia University’s Astrophysics Lab and lead author on the study.