Sagittarius A*

English

Etymology

From being the unseen gravitational centre associated with the astronomical radio source Sagittarius A, the astrophysical radio source associated with the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy. The asterisk * originally symbolized an exciting discovery, by analogy with the symbol's use to denote the excited state of atoms.

Proper noun

Sagittarius A*

  1. The central supermassive black hole of the Milky Way Galaxy.
    • 2022 May 12, Dennis Overbye, “The Milky Way’s Black Hole Comes to Light”, in The New York Times‎[1], →ISSN:
      Sagittarius A*, the black hole in the Milky Way galaxy, was a harder target. It is less than one-thousandth the mass and size of the M87 hole and, therefore, evolves a thousand times faster.

Synonyms

See also

  • Messier 87* (“Pōwehi”) (the first directly imaged central supermassive black hole of a galaxy)

Further reading

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