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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 hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, [3] [4] [5] a compact radio source which is almost exactly at the galactic rotational center.
An interstellar cloud is generally an accumulation of gas, plasma, and dust in our and other galaxies. But differently, an interstellar cloud is a denser-than-average region of the interstellar medium , the matter and radiation that exists in the space between the star systems in a galaxy.
Stars form by gravitational collapse of interstellar gas clouds. As the collapse increases the density, radiative energy loss decreases due to increased opacity. This raises the temperature of the cloud which prevents further collapse, and a hydrostatic equilibrium is established. Gas continues to fall towards the core in a rotating disk.
[f] [154] [155] Filling the space between the stars is a disk of gas and dust called the interstellar medium. This disk has at least a comparable extent in radius to the stars, [156] whereas the thickness of the gas layer ranges from hundreds of light-years for the colder gas to thousands of light-years for warmer gas. [157] [158]
Molecular clouds typically have interstellar medium densities of 10 to 30 cm-3, and constitute approximately 50% of the total interstellar gas in a galaxy. [11] Most of the gas is found in a molecular state. The visual boundaries of a molecular cloud is not where the cloud effectively ends, but where molecular gas changes to atomic gas in a ...
NGC 1232, also known as the Eye of God Galaxy is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 60 million light-years away [2] in the constellation Eridanus.It was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on 20 October 1784.
A rotating disk of ionized gas surrounds the black hole, and is roughly perpendicular to the relativistic jet. The disk rotates at velocities of up to roughly 1,000 km/s (2,200,000 mph) [ 75 ] and spans a maximum diameter of 25,000 AU (3.7 trillion km; 2.3 trillion mi). [ 76 ]
Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2) is a giant molecular cloud of gas and dust that is located about 120 parsecs (390 ly) from the center of the Milky Way.This complex is the largest molecular cloud in the vicinity of the core and one of the largest in the galaxy, spanning a region about 45 parsecs (150 ly) across. [2]