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The term 'Sagittarius A*', sometimes mentioned in news, refers to
Explanation
Sagittarius A* (abbreviated as Sgr A*) is the supermassive black hole located at the center of our Milky Way galaxy [1]. It is situated approximately 26,000 to 27,000 light-years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius [1]. With a mass equivalent to roughly 4 million suns, it exerts a powerful gravitational pull that governs the motion of nearby stars [1]. While many galactic nuclei are highly active, Sgr A* is described as being relatively quiet, though it occasionally exhibits bright flares. In 2022, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration released the first direct image of Sgr A*, confirming its nature as a compact, supermassive object. This discovery has allowed astronomers to study the physics of accretion and the evolution of galaxies in unprecedented detail.
Sources
- [1] Physical Geography by PMF IAS, Manjunath Thamminidi, PMF IAS (1st ed.) > Chapter 1: The Universe, The Big Bang Theory, Galaxies & Stellar Evolution > Our Galaxy (The Milky Way) > p. 8