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Sagittarius A*, abbreviated as Sgr A* (/ ˈ s æ dʒ ˈ eɪ s t ɑːr / SADGE-AY-star [3]), is the supermassive black hole [4] [5] [6] at the Galactic Center of the Milky Way.Viewed from Earth, it is located near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, about 5.6° south of the ecliptic, [7] visually close to the Butterfly Cluster (M6) and Lambda Scorpii.
Sagittarius A (Sgr A) is a complex radio source at the center of the Milky Way, which contains a supermassive black hole. It is located between Scorpius and Sagittarius , and is hidden from view at optical wavelengths by large clouds of cosmic dust in the spiral arms of the Milky Way.
A number of different coordinate systems, each differing by a few degrees, were used until 1932, when Lund Observatory assembled a set of conversion tables that defined a standard galactic coordinate system based on a galactic north pole at RA 12 h 40 m, dec +28° (in the B1900.0 epoch convention) and a 0° longitude at the point where the ...
The Galactic Center is the barycenter of the Milky Way and a corresponding point on the rotational axis of the galaxy. [1] [2] Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, [3] [4] [5] a compact radio source which is almost exactly at the galactic rotational center.
One of the most studied stars is S2, a relatively bright star that also passes close by Sgr A*. As of 2020 [update] , S4714 is the current record holder of closest approach to Sagittarius A*, at about 12.6 astronomical units (1.88 × 10 9 km), almost as close as Saturn gets to the Sun, traveling at about 8% of the speed of light.
S2, also known as S0–2, is a star in the star cluster close to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), orbiting it with a period of 16.0518 years, a semi-major axis of about 970 au, and a pericenter distance of 17 light hours (18 Tm or 120 au) – an orbit with a period only about 30% longer than that of Jupiter around the Sun, but coming no closer than about four times the ...
[1] [2] The stars δ Sgr (Kaus Media), ε Sgr (Kaus Australis), ζ Sgr (Ascella), and φ Sgr form the body of the pot; λ Sgr (Kaus Borealis) is the point of the lid; γ 2 Sgr (Alnasl) is the tip of the spout; and σ Sgr (Nunki) and τ Sgr the handle. These same stars originally formed the bow and arrow of Sagittarius. [3]
Later observations showed it to be much farther away, reported in 2001 to be between 7.4 and 12.31 kpc, [7] 6.2 kpc in 2014, [4] and around 6.6 kpc according to its Gaia Data Release 2 parallax. [2] The star in the binary system is a late B class giant with a mass about three times that of the Sun. It orbits a black hole about twice as massive ...