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Telescope spies the fastest star in the Milky Way zipping around a black hole
The star’s tight orbit could let astronomers measure Sagittarius A*’s spin directly and test general relativity within about a decade, researchers said.
- On Wednesday, researchers published in the journal Nature the discovery of S301, the fastest known star orbiting the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* , traveling at speeds up to 56 million miles per hour.
- The GRAVITY+ collaboration discovered the faint star using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile, with upgraded sensitivity boosted by a factor of 10 to 100 to detect objects 4 billion times fainter than visible stars.
- S301 completes an orbit every 8.7 years, passing within about 12 astronomical units of the black hole—roughly Saturn's distance from the sun—making it 10 times closer than the previous record holder, S2.
- The star's extreme proximity allows astronomers to measure Sgr A*'s spin for the first time, with study co-author Felix Mang stating this enables a direct test of Einstein's general theory of relativity.
- Researchers anticipate measuring Sgr A*'s spin within the next decade as the star's orbit shifts due to the Lense-Thirring effect, while astrophysicist Stefan Gillessen confirmed the star faces no danger: "Its orbit will not decay anytime soon.
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Astronomers have discovered the fastest known star orbiting the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, at speeds of up to 25,000 kilometers per second. This is interesting because it can provide insight into how that black hole itself rotates. This way, scientists can see if Einstein was right (yet again).
·Brussels, Belgium
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But that's not the most interesting thing: his trajectory would lead us, for the first time, straight to a black hole.
·Madrid, Spain
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·London, United Kingdom
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At a speed of 25,000 kilometers per second, the star S301 moves in the center of the Milky Way. It is thus the fastest star ever discovered in our galaxy. It makes possible a gigantic object around which it orbits.
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Leaning Left13Leaning Right2Center16Last UpdatedBias Distribution52% Center
Bias Distribution
- 52% of the sources are Center
52% Center
L 42%
C 52%
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