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The Galactic Center, as seen by one of the 2MASS infrared telescopes, is located in the bright upper left portion of the image. Marked location of the Galactic Center. 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 ...
With the development of the heliocentric model by Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century, the Sun was believed to be the center of the Universe, with the planets (including Earth) and stars orbiting it. In the early-20th century, the discovery of other galaxies and the development of the Big Bang theory, led to the development of cosmological ...
The Milky Way [c] is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.
The galactic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system in spherical coordinates, with the Sun as its center, the primary direction aligned with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy, and the fundamental plane parallel to an approximation of the galactic plane but offset to its north. It uses the right-handed convention ...
The spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy through which the Sun is currently travelling. Orbit of the Solar System: 17,200 pc 5.31×10 17: 17.72: The average diameter of the orbit of the Solar System relative to the Galactic Center. The Sun's orbital radius is roughly 8,600 parsecs, or slightly over halfway to the galactic edge.
Galactic year. The galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the duration of time required for the Sun to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. [1] One galactic year is approximately 225 million Earth years. [2] The Solar System is traveling at an average speed of 230 km/s (828,000 km/h) or 143 mi/s (514,000 mph) within its ...
An image of the Brick captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. The cloud resides near the galaxy’s center, about 26,000 light-years from Earth, according to NASA.
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.