The galactic anticenter is a direction in space directly opposite to the

Galactic Center The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center, the barycenter, of the Milky Way galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact rad ...

, as viewed from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. This direction corresponds to a point on the

celestial sphere In astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an abstract sphere that has an arbitrarily large radius and is concentric to Earth. All objects in the sky can be conceived as being projected upon the inner surface of the celestial sphere, ...

. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the galactic anticenter is located in the constellation

Auriga AURIGA (''Antenna Ultracriogenica Risonante per l'Indagine Gravitazionale Astronomica'') is an ultracryogenic resonant bar gravitational wave detector in Italy. It is at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nuclea ...

, and the

Crab nebula The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations Messier object, M1, New General Catalogue, NGC 1952, Taurus (constellation), Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus (constellation), Taurus. The common name ...

and the bright star

Beta Tauri Beta Tauri is the second-brightest star in the constellation of Taurus. It has the official name Elnath; ''Beta Tauri'' is the current Bayer designation, which is Latinised from β Tauri and abbreviated Beta Tau or β Tau. The origina ...

(Elnath) appear nearest this point. For binocular and telescope observers in dark sky locations, the magnitude 8.5 star

HIP In vertebrate anatomy, hip (or "coxa"Latin ''coxa'' was used by Celsus in the sense "hip", but by Pliny the Elder in the sense "hip bone" (Diab, p 77) in medical terminology) refers to either an anatomical region or a joint. The hip region is ...

27180 appears closest to this point.

Location

In terms of the

galactic coordinate system The galactic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system in spherical coordinates, with the Sun as its center, the primary direction aligned with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy, and the fundamental plane parallel to an ap ...

, the Galactic Center (in Sagittarius) corresponds to a longitude of 0°, while the anticenter is located exactly at 180°. In the

equatorial coordinate system The equatorial coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system widely used to specify the positions of celestial objects. It may be implemented in spherical or rectangular coordinates, both defined by an origin at the centre of Earth, a fund ...

, the anticenter is found at roughly RA 05h 46m, dec +28° 56'.

References

Anticenter Anticenter {{Spiral-galaxy-stub

Location

See also

References