#BLACKHOLE NAMES PATCH#

#BLACKHOLE NAMES PATCH#

Astronomers dubbed this region 'Sagittarius A' to identify this particular area within the large patch of sky that this constellation covers. About 50 years ago, astronomers identified an area within the constellation of Sagittarius that was the strongest region of radio emission thus making it the likely center of the Milky Way. The name 'Sagittarius A*' refers to the believed location of the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy.

The reason for this notation is explained very well here by taking the example of Sagittarius A*: M87's black hole or 'M87*' is located at the center of Messier 87 (M87) galaxy. And so appear under different names in different contexts.Īsterisk generally indicate that the body is located at the center of galaxy. ' Other black holes were previously known as quasars, and have a quasar designation, or have multiple designations as radio sources, X-ray sources, UV sources. Many don't seem to have their own name and are merely 'The SMBH at the centre of. But there is no systematic naming of black holes like this. On this model, some other supermassive black holes are also designated by a *. When I began thinking of the radio source as the “exciting source” for theĬluster of H II regions seen in the VLA maps, the name Sgr A* occurred to me by analogy brought to mindīy my PhD dissertation, which is in atomic physics and where the nomenclature for excited state atoms is “ Scratching on a yellow pad one morning I He said, later that he attached a * because he thought this object was 'exciting', and excited states of atoms have a * attached: Sgr A* was a named (by its co-discover) Robert Brown. With higher resolution it is clear that Sgr A is actually multiple objects: A supernova remnant, several clouds of ionised gas, and a compact source of radio waves. In early radio wavelength maps it wasn't clear if this was a single source or multiple. Sgr A is a radio source from near the centre of the galaxy.

Blackhole names