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Re:Astronomers Creep Up to the Edge of the Milky Way’s Black...
by phs318u on Wednesday October 31, 2018 @02:35AM
(#18343735)
Asterisk is derived from asteriskos, the Greek diminutive for star (aster) - hence "little star". In addition, a black hole is one of several possible lifecycle end-points of a star, so pronouncing A* as A-star is pretty accurate.
> The name Sgr A* was coined by Brown in a 1982 paper because the radio source was "exciting", and excited states of atoms are denoted with asterisks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A*