Sagittarius “A” Complex in
Scorpio/Sagittarius, the Center of Our Galaxy
Paul
LaViolette, Earth under Fire, tells
us that the Ancients knew the exact center of the Milky Way Galaxy even though
it is obscured by inter-stellar clouds of dust. The olden astronomers marked
its location by the arrow-point (Arabic, Al
Nasal) of the constellation Sagittarius shown by the orange-colored star Gamma
Sagittarii (γ Sgr).
Because our solar system moves; and the stars move –our long-term perspective
of the universe changes slightly over time. 18,200 years ago Sagittarius’ arrow
shaft pointed precisely toward the galactic center –which is quite astounding.
The first
modern estimate of the Galactic Center was made by Harlow Shapley in 1917 by
determining the 93 globular (dense ball-like) star clusters scattered uniformly
around our galaxy. Knowing the position and distance of each cluster, he was able
to make a three-dimensional map of their distribution, and from this he was
able to determine the distribution’s center point. Shapley’s brilliant estimate
was eight-times less accurate than the Ancients’ position recorded on Classical
and Renaissance star maps. In 1931 Karl Jansky of Bell Laboratories detected
the Galactic Center (GC) by observing the radio wave region of the
electromagnetic spectrum (the GC is the brightest radio source in the sky).
Eventually, in the mid 1960’s the GC was found to be within 0.04° of Sagittarius A.
The notion
that the Milky Way is made up of a mass of stars was mooted by the Greek
philosopher Democritus (400 B.C.). In 1610 AD this ancient idea was confirmed
by Galileo with the use of his famous one-inch telescope. In 1543 Copernicus
had proposed that our Sun lay at the center of our solar system. Then in 1917
Harlow Shapley discovered that our Sun is just one of multitudes of suns in the
universe. In 1924 Edwin Hubble showed that there were countless spiral galaxies
in the universe which were located beyond the limits of our own Milky Way spiral galaxy.
Some modern
scientists suggest that our Galactic Center is a giant black hole –a
gravitational singularity that voraciously gobbles up surrounding gas. But,
LaViolette writes that ancient astronomers said that the Heart of the Galaxy is
a womb where matter and energy are created, a cosmic wellspring giving birth to
all the matter in the Galaxy. Cultures such as the Mexica-Maya-Andean group attributed great power to Scorpio/Sagittarius as part of the ressurrection cycle of the soul.
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