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

A view of the center of the Milky Way from a ground-based telescope, with arrows pinpointing the location of Sgr A*. [European Southern Observatory]

This document was last modified: December 12, 2005.