page_title: Galactic Center
section_title: Supermassive black hole
hierarchical_section_title: Galactic Center / Supermassive black hole
caption_attribution_description: English: In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, NASA's Great Observatories -- the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- have produced a matched trio of images of the central region of our Milky Way galaxy. Each image shows the telescope's different wavelength view of the galactic center region, illustrating the unique science each observatory conducts. In this spectacular image, observations using infrared light and X-ray light see through the obscuring dust and reveal the intense activity near the galactic core. Note that the center of the galaxy is located within the bright white region to the right of and just below the middle of the image. The entire image width covers about one-half a degree, about the same angular width as the full moon. Each telescope's contribution is presented in a different colour: Yellow represents the near-infrared observations of Hubble. The galactic center is marked by the bright patch in the lower right. Along the left side are large arcs of warm gas that have been heated by clusters of bright massive stars. In addition, Hubble uncovered many more massive stars across the region. Winds and radiation from these stars create the complex structures seen in the gas throughout the image.This sweeping panorama is one of the sharpest infrared pictures ever made of the galactic center region. Red represents the infrared observations of Spitzer. The swirling core of our galaxy harbors hundreds of thousands of stars that cannot be seen in visible light. These stars heat the nearby gas and dust. These dusty clouds glow in infrared light and reveal their often dramatic shapes. Some of these clouds harbor stellar nurseries that are forming new generations of stars. Like the downtown of a large city, the center of our galaxy is a crowded, active, and vibrant place. Blue and violet represent the X-ray observations of Chandra. In this image, violet represents lower energy X-rays and blue indicates higher energy. Hundreds of small dots show emission from material around black holes and other dense stellar objects. A supermassive black hole -- some four million times more massive than the Sun -- resides within the bright region in the lower right. The diffuse X-ray light comes from gas heated to millions of degrees by outflows from the supermassive black hole, winds from giant stars, and stellar explosions. This central region is the most energetic place in our galaxy. When these views are brought together, this composite image provides one of the most detailed views ever of our galaxy's mysterious core. Español: Imagen compuesta de la región central de la Vía Láctea (por los satélites Hubble, Spitzer y Chandra). Français&#160;: Image composite de la région centrale de la Voie lactée (par les satellites Hubble, Spitzer et Chandra). हिन्दी: आकाशगंगा आकृति में एक सर्पिल गैलेक्सी है, जिसका एक बड़ा केंद्र है और उस से निकलती हुई कई वक्र भुजाएँ हैं। यह स्पिट्ज़र और हबल अंतरिक्ष दूरदर्शी और चंद्रा एक्स-रे वेधशाला द्वारा लिये गए चित्रों को मिलाकर बनाया गया एक विस्तृत चित्र है। चित्र के दाईं ओर और चित्र के मध्य के थोड़ा नीचे सफेद चमकता क्षेत्र केंद्र है। Polski: Obraz centralnego obszaru Drogi Mlecznej złożony z&#160;trzech fotografii wykonanych za&#160;pomocą teleskopów kosmicznych Hubble’a, Spitzera oraz Chandra. Čeština: Složený snímek galaktického jádra naší galaxie Mléčná dráha. Magyar: A Tejútrendszer központi része a Hubble, Spitzer és Chandra űrtávcsövek felvételén Italiano: Un'immagine composita della regione centrale della nostra galassia, la Via Lattea. L'immagine è stata ottenuta unendo osservazioni del Hubble Space Telescope, dello Spitzer Space Telescope e del Chandra X-ray Observatory a diverse lunghezze d'onda, permettendo di rivelare l'intensa attività vicino al nucleo galattico dietro alle scure nubi di polveri. 한국어: 우리 은하 중심부의 합성 영상. Македонски: Средишното подрачје на нашата галаксија, Млечниот Пат. Nederlands: Montagefoto van het centrum van de Melkweg Português: Região central da Via Láctea. Imagem composta produzida pelos satélites Hubble, Spitzer e Chandra.
context_page_description: The Galactic Center is the rotational center of the Milky Way galaxy; it is a supermassive black hole of 4.100 ± 0.034 million solar masses which powers the compact radio source Sagittarius A*. It is 8.2 ± 0.4 kiloparsecs away from Earth in the direction of the constellations Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, and Scorpius where the Milky Way appears brightest.
  There are around 10 million stars within one parsec of the Galactic Center, dominated by red giants, with a significant population of massive supergiants and Wolf-Rayet stars from star formation in the region around 1 million years ago.
context_section_description: The complex astronomical radio source Sagittarius A appears to be located almost exactly at the Galactic Center and contains an intense compact radio source, Sagittarius A*, which coincides with a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Accretion of gas onto the black hole, probably involving an accretion disk around it, would release energy to power the radio source, itself much larger than the black hole. The latter is too small to see with present instruments.
  A study in 2008 which linked radio telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona and California (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) measured the diameter of Sagittarius A* to be 44 million kilometers (0.3 AU). For comparison, the radius of Earth's orbit around the Sun is about 150 million kilometers (1.0 AU), whereas the distance of Mercury from the Sun at closest approach (perihelion) is 46 million kilometers (0.3 AU). Thus, the diameter of the radio source is slightly less than the distance from Mercury to the Sun.
  Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany using Chilean telescopes have confirmed the existence of a supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center, on the order of 4.3 million solar masses.
  On 5 January 2015, NASA reported observing an X-ray flare 400 times brighter than usual, a record-breaker, from Sagittarius A*. The unusual event may have been caused by the breaking apart of an asteroid falling into the black hole or by the entanglement of magnetic field lines within gas flowing into Sagittarius A*, according to astronomers.
caption: There is a supermassive black hole in the bright white area to the right of the center of the image. This composite photograph covers about half of a degree.
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