The Galactic Center is the rotational center of the Milky Way galaxy. It is located about 7.6 kilo parsecs (25,000 ly) away from the Earth in the direction of the constellations Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, and Scorpius where the Milky Way appears brightest. There is a suspected super massive black hole at the Galactic Center of the Milky Way.
Because of interstellar dust along the line of sight, the Galactic Center cannot be studied at visible, ultraviolet or soft X-ray wavelengths. The available information about the Galactic Center comes from observations at gamma ray, hard X-ray, infrared, sub-millimeter and radio wavelengths.
Coordinates of the Galactic Center were first found by Harlow Shipley in his 1918 study of the distribution of the globular clusters. In the Equatorial coordinate system they are: RA 17h45m40.04s, Dec -29° 00' 28.1" (J2000 epoch).
The complex astronomical radio source Sagittarius A appears to be located almost exactly at the Galactic Center, and contains an intense compact radio source, Sagittarius A*, which coincides with a super massive black hole at the center of our Galaxy. Accretion of gas onto the black hole, probably involving a disk around it, would release energy to power the radio source, itself much larger than the black hole. The latter is too small to see with present instruments.
Because of interstellar dust along the line of sight, the Galactic Center cannot be studied at visible, ultraviolet or soft X-ray wavelengths. The available information about the Galactic Center comes from observations at gamma ray, hard X-ray, infrared, sub-millimeter and radio wavelengths.
Coordinates of the Galactic Center were first found by Harlow Shipley in his 1918 study of the distribution of the globular clusters. In the Equatorial coordinate system they are: RA 17h45m40.04s, Dec -29° 00' 28.1" (J2000 epoch).
The complex astronomical radio source Sagittarius A appears to be located almost exactly at the Galactic Center, and contains an intense compact radio source, Sagittarius A*, which coincides with a super massive black hole at the center of our Galaxy. Accretion of gas onto the black hole, probably involving a disk around it, would release energy to power the radio source, itself much larger than the black hole. The latter is too small to see with present instruments.
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