Abstract
INTRODUCTION. FROM current work on the distribution of stars, clusters, and extra-galactic nebulae, I estimate that at least 90 per cent of the sky is free of obscuring nebulous clouds. It therefore seems like an unhappy caprice in the arrangement of the material world that the centre of the Galaxy is behind impenetrable cosmic clouds, and thus hopelessly concealed from the vision of the only creatures in the whole Galaxy (so far as we know) who are curious about the centre. One investigation after another indicates an obscured region in the southern Milky Way, where the constellations Scorpio, Ophiuchus, and Sagittarius corner together, as the direction to the gravitational and rotational centre of the galactic stellar system. The hundred square degrees immediately surrounding this central point appear to be more than half covered by dark nebulosity; all along the southern Milky Way, within thirty degrees of the centre, the obscuration is heavy; but it is so irregular, fortunately, and so incomplete, that numerous exceedingly faint and distant stars are found in the clear areas. High stellar concentration, behind the obscuring veil that overlies most of the centre, is suggested by the distribution of stars in these transparent regions. Is there a massive galactic nucleus concealed by the dark nebulosity? Or is there an ordinary stellar density comparable with that of the sun's neighbourhood? Is our Galaxy an enormous spiral nebula? Or is it an assemblage of stars and star clouds?
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SHAPLEY, H. The Centre of the Galaxy1. Nature 122, 482–484 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122482a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122482a0