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Loading contentThe crowded, dust-shrouded core of the Milky Way, about 26,000 light-years away, home to a dense star cluster and the four-million-solar-mass black hole Sagittarius A*. Hidden at optical wavelengths, it is studied in radio, infrared, and X-rays, and its stars' orbits weigh the central black hole directly.
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Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
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