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

1

A radio image of the center of the galaxy shows Sgr A* as a white dot at center, surrounded by clouds of gas. [NOAO/AUI/NSF/Jun-Hui Zhao/W.M. Goss]

This document was last modified: December 6, 2005.