What is at the center of the Milky Way?

Our Galaxy is shaped like the figure eight, so the farther we fly we never reach an end.

The complex astronomical radio source Sagittarius A appears to be located almost exactly at the Galactic Center (approx. 18 hrs, −29 deg), and contains an intense compact radio source, Sagittarius A*, which coincides with a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

What is at the center of the Milky Way? 

At its center, surrounded by 200-400 billion stars and undetectable to the human eye and by direct measurements, lies a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* for short.

The Milky Way has the shape of a spiral and rotates around its center, with long curling arms surrounding a slightly bulging disk. It's on one of these arms close to the center that the sun and Earth are located. Scientists estimate that the galactic center and Sgr A* are around 25,000 to 28,000 light-years away from us. The entire galaxy is around 100,000 light-years across.

Minutes before clouds gathered over the night sky, 

astrophotographer Matt Pollock took this image 

of the Milky Way on March 3, 2016, from Cherry Plain 

State Park in Petersburg, New York. Credit: Matt Pollock

Source: LiveScience


Wikipedia diagram of Outer Space

















Outer Space

The interface between the Earth's surface and outer space. The Kármán line at an altitude of 100 km (62 mi) is shown. The layers of the atmosphere are drawn to scale, whereas objects within them, such as the International Space Station, are not.