Alternate Names

Sagittarius A*

Type

Supermassive

Location

In the constellation Sagittarius

Finder Chart

Distance

27,000 light-years (8 kiloparsecs)

Mass

4.1 million times the mass of the Sun

Size

Diameter roughly 15 million miles (24 million km).

Discovery Methods

• Measuring the motions of stars

An infrared view of the central region of the Milky Way galaxy shows several massive stars that orbit the galaxy's supermassive black hole. [ESO/S. Gillessen et al.]

This document was last modified: December 10, 2008.