Seventeenth Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics and Cosmology
Volume 759 of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
September 30, 1995
The Galactic center is a superb laboratory of modern astrophysics where astronomers can study at unprecedented spatial resolution and across the entire electromagnetic spectrum physical processes that may also happen at the cores of other galaxies. Following a brief review of the phenomena observed in the central few hundred parsecs, we discuss two main issues in more detail. The source(s) of luminosity in the central parsec and the nature of the compact radio source SgrA*, the most likely candidate for a massive central black hole.