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

Gas and dust spirals toward the black hole at the center of the Milky Way in this composite visible and infrared image from two space telescopes. The disk is several light-years wide, and may be giving birth to new stars in its outer regions. [NASA/ESA/Q.D. Wang (Univ. Mass.-Amherst)/JPL/S. Stolovy (SSC/Caltech)]

This document was last modified: January 6, 2009.