Map of the Universe

Galactic centre

A view about 13,000 light-years across · Milky Way

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The centre of the Milky Way, about 26,000 light-years from the Sun: the Galactic bar, the Central Molecular Zone and the black hole Sagittarius A*, about 4 million times the mass of the Sun.

Every scale, from Earth outwards

  1. Earth and Moon 0.008 AU
  2. Inner planets 4 AU
  3. Jupiter's orbit 14 AU
  4. Neptune and the Kuiper belt 110 AU
  5. Heliopause and Voyagers 400 AU
  6. Oort cloud 4 light-years
  7. Nearest stars 24 light-years
  8. 100 light-years 220 light-years
  9. 1,000 light-years 2,400 light-years
  10. Local Arm 12,000 light-years
  11. Galactic centre 13,000 light-years
  12. Milky Way 160,000 light-years
  13. Magellanic Clouds 520,000 light-years
  14. Satellite galaxies 2 million light-years
  15. Local Group 10 million light-years
  16. Council of Giants 36 million light-years
  17. Virgo Supercluster 230 million light-years
  18. Laniakea 850 million light-years
  19. Nearby superclusters 2.3 billion light-years
  20. Cosmic web 11 billion light-years
  21. Observable universe 100 billion light-years