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Comment by greglindahl | Hacker News Reader

The headline ("A Black Hole Threw a Star Out of the Milky Way Galaxy") isn't very accurate. The black hole in question is the super-massive black hole in the middle of our galaxy, and like most galaxies, there's only one of them. The article does go on to explain that, which is great, but it would be nice if the headline writer hadn't dropped that essential fact.

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What’s not accurate? When I read “a black hole”, I don’t assume we’re talking about Sagittarius A*, just a black hole.

... that's exactly what's inaccurate. It's not just some ordinary black hole, it's the unique one in the Milky Way galaxy.

I also don’t read it as not Sagittarius A*. I wouldn’t even expect a lay audience to know that name.

...all definite articles can also be indefinite. The title is absolutely correct.

Remind me when you "see a sun rising in the morning" next time. Using an indefinite article here is noticed by the reader and will pose the question "Oh, is there one more?". In language rules are sometimes not as absolute as "all definite articles can also be indefinite".

This is not a proper comparison, as the relevant property is not of something being the only member of a category, but of being the already mentioned one.

For the sun we suppose the person speaking knows of THE Sun. For the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy we don't.

This can be easily shown as "The Black Hole Threw a Star Out of the Milky Way Galaxy" is clearly misusing the definite article.

"The Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way Threw a Star Out of the Galaxy" would probably be an alternate way to write the headline using the definite article.

Agree that _just_ an article swap leaves the headline worse off.

I agree this is a better headline. In the original, I was left wondering if it was possible for a black hole outside of our Galaxy to eject a star from ours.

That should be impossible (unlikely), but it could have been a smaller black hole around the galaxy.

Odd for sure, but not wrong.

Anyway there’s only one sun and many black holes.

I agree. Also, the average reader of NYT doesn't care or know about the giant black hole at the center of our galaxy and 'black hole' is enough for them to get the point of the story.

So when you say "not very accurate" you're refering solely to how it's not specifying that it's our black hole? As in, the headline is perfectly accurate except it should say "the black hole" instead of "a black hole", and that moves it to "not very accurate" for you?

But we are talking about Sagittarius A*.

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