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Astronomy (thesaurus)

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Concept information

Preferred term

galactic center  

Definition

  • The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center, the barycenter, of the Milky Way galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact radio source which is almost exactly at the galactic rotational center. The Galactic Center is approximately 8 kiloparsecs (26,000 ly) away from Earth in the direction of the constellations Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, and Scorpius, where the Milky Way appears brightest, visually close to the Butterfly Cluster (M6) or the star Shaula, south to the Pipe Nebula. (Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Center)

Broader concept

Entry terms

  • galactic centre

In other languages

URI

http://data.loterre.fr/ark:/67375/MDL-KCRG80WH-3

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