Sagittarius (astronomy)

Sagittarius (astronomy) (Latin for “the archer”), a constellation of the southern hemisphere, represented pictorially as a centaur shooting an arrow. Sagittarius is a zodiacal constellation—that is, a constellation located along the ecliptic, the apparent annual path of the sun across the sky (see Zodiac). It is located south of the constellation Aquila, partly in the Milky Way, the center of which is in Sagittarius. Eight of its stars, the brightest of which is the fourth-magnitude star Rukbat (alpha Sagittarii), are visible to the naked eye.