This article is about the center of the Milky Way. For the general concept, see Galaxy § Center. For the book series, see Galactic Center Saga.
The Galactic Center, as seen by one of the 2MASS infrared telescopes, is located in the bright upper left portion of the image.Marked location of the Galactic CenterA starchart of the night sky towards the Galactic Center
The Galactic Center is the rotational center and the barycenter of the Milky Way.[1][2] Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*,[3][4][5] a compact radio source which is almost exactly at the galactic rotational center.[clarification needed] The Galactic Center is approximately 8 kiloparsecs (26,000 ly) away from Earth[3] in the direction of the constellations Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, and Scorpius, where the Milky Way appears brightest, visually close to the Butterfly Cluster (M6) or the star Shaula, south to the Pipe Nebula.
There are around 10 million stars within one parsec of the Galactic Center, dominated by red giants, with a significant population of massive supergiants and Wolf–Rayet stars from star formation in the region around 1 million years ago. The core stars are a small part within the much wider galactic bulge.
^Overbye, Dennis (31 January 2022). "An Electrifying View of the Heart of the Milky Way – A new radio-wave image of the center of our galaxy reveals all the forms of frenzy that a hundred million or so stars can get up to". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
^Heywood, I.; et al. (28 January 2022). "The 1.28 GHZ MeerKAT Galactic Center Mosaic". The Astrophysical Journal. 925 (2): 165. arXiv:2201.10541. Bibcode:2022ApJ...925..165H. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac449a. S2CID 246275657.
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The GalacticCenter is the rotational center and the barycenter of the Milky Way. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million...
located at a radius of about 27,000 light-years (8.3 kpc) from the GalacticCenter, on the inner edge of the Orion Arm, one of the spiral-shaped concentrations...
The galactic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system in spherical coordinates, with the Sun as its center, the primary direction aligned with...
The GalacticCenter Saga is a series of books by author Gregory Benford detailing a galactic war between mechanical and biological life. In the Ocean of...
GalacticCenter In 2021, astronomers reported the detection of peculiar, highly circularly polarized intermittent radio waves from near the Galactic Center...
The galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the duration of time required for the Sun to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. One...
galaxies are named by their spiral structures that extend from the center into the galactic disc. The spiral arms are sites of ongoing star formation and are...
Universe does not have a center. Center of the universe (disambiguation) Cosmic microwave background Earth's inner core GalacticCenter Geographical centre...
000 ly) and an inner radius close to the GalacticCenter (with both radii lacking hard boundaries). Galactic habitable-zone theory has been criticized...
around the GalacticCenter. One galactic tick is only about 0.00000077 percent (1/[360 × 60 × 60 × 100]) of a full galactic year. The Galactic Tick Day...
Galactic core or galaxy core can refer to: Astronomy GalacticCenter of the Milky Way Nucleus region of a galaxy Active galactic nucleus, of a regular...
The galactic anticenter is a direction in space directly opposite to the GalacticCenter, as viewed from Earth. This direction corresponds to a point on...
The GalacticCenter GeV Excess (GCE) is an unexpected surplus of gamma-ray radiation in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This spherical source of radiation...
A galactic halo is an extended, roughly spherical component of a galaxy which extends beyond the main, visible component. Several distinct components of...
Fiction in which black holes feature GalacticCenter GeV excess – Unexplained gamma rays from the galacticcenter Hypercompact stellar system – cluster...
supermassive black hole at their center. This includes the Milky Way, whose core region is called the GalacticCenter. The Hubble classification system...
the direction towards the GalacticCenter. Galactic latitude resembles the elevation above the galactic plane and galactic longitude determines direction...
A galactic disc (or galactic disk) is a component of disc galaxies, such as spiral galaxies, lenticular galaxies, and the Milky Way. Galactic discs consist...
Worlds galactic quadrant region. The sun, Coruscant Prime, is the zero coordinate of the Star Wars galaxy (as opposed to being its galacticcenter). In...
surplus of gamma rays from the Milky Way's galacticcenter was found in Fermi data. This GalacticCenter GeV excess might be due to dark matter annihilation...
perpendicular to the galactic plane point to the galactic poles. In actual usage, the terms galactic plane and galactic poles usually refer specifically to the...
accurate infrared observations became possible ~50 years ago, the GalacticCenter of the Milky Way was totally obscured to visual observations. The magnitudes...
through the galacticcenter, the quadrants are as follows (where l is galactic longitude): 1st galactic quadrant – 0° ≤ l ≤ 90° 2nd galactic quadrant –...
encounters with other clusters and clouds of gas as they orbit the GalacticCenter. This can result in a loss of cluster members through internal close...
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