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News Release 21 of 56

November 10, 2009 11:00 AM (EST)

News Release Number: STScI-2009-28

NASA's Great Observatories Celebrate International Year of Astronomy

Technical facts about this news release:

About the Object

Object Name:	Galactic Center
Object Description:	Center of the Milky Way Galaxy
Position (J2000):	R.A. 17h 45m 36s.00 Dec. -28° 55' 58".8
Constellation:	Sagittarius
Distance:	26,000 light-years (8 kiloparsecs)
Dimensions:	The composite image of the galactic center is 32.5 arcminutes (246 light-years or 75.5 parsecs) wide.

About the Spitzer Data

Galactic Center Region in Infrared from Spitzer

Data Description:	The Spitzer Space Telescope data were courtesy of NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and S. Stolovy (Spitzer Science Center/California Institute of Technology).
Instrument:	Infrared Array Camera (IRAC)
Exposure Date(s):	September 3, 2004, and September 15, 2005
Filters:	3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange), 8.0 microns (red)

About the Hubble Data

Galactic Center Region in Near-Infrared from Hubble

Data Description:	The Hubble component was from the HST proposal 11120: Q.D. Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), S. Stolovy (Caltech), C. Lang (University of Iowa), A. Cotera (SETI Institute), M. Muno (Caltech), M. Morris (University of California, Los Angeles), D. Calzetti (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), S. Ramirez (Caltech), and G. Schneider (University of Arizona).
Instrument:	NICMOS
Exposure Date(s):	February 22 - June 5, 2008
Filters:	F187N (Paschen-Alpha) and F190N (Paschen-Alpha continuum)

About the Chandra Data

Galactic Center Region in X-rays from Chandra

Data Description:	The science team was led by Q.D. Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst). Image courtesy of NASA/CXC/UMass/Q.D. Wang et al.
Instrument:	ACIS
Exposure Date(s):	March 2000 - July 2007
Filters:	1-3 keV, 3-5 keV, 5-8 keV

About this Image

Image Credit:	NASA, ESA, CXC, SSC, and STScI
Release Date:	November 10, 2009
Orientation/Scale: