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.
127 Articles
127 Articles
Radio France Internationale
Mwanzo TVMilky Way's fastest star discovered spinning around black hole
The star, named S301, orbits so dangerously close to the black hole that scientists believe it can shed light on this unimaginably powerful cosmic monster -- and test out Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. "Decades carefully tracking stars orbiting our galaxy's central black hole, Sagittarius A*, have led to this breakthrough discovery," Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany said in a statement.…
A group of astronomers discovered the fastest known star so far on the Milky Way, which orbits at a speed of 25,000 kilometers per second around the supermassive black hole located in the center of our galaxy.
The S301 orbits the black hole in the Milky Way and comes closer to it than any other object previously observed.
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
- 51% of the sources are Center
Factuality
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium
