Astronomers have discovered a new, boundary-pushing star orbiting Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The international research team, led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, examined data from the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) in Chile, revealing the extraordinary orbital motion of the star called S301.
8.7-YEAR TOUR AT THE LIMIT OF LIGHT SPEED
Moving in a very narrow and elliptical orbit, S301 completes a full orbit around the giant black hole in only 8.7 years. During this cosmic dance, the star, which is inserted into the black hole at a distance of only 12 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, reaches a dizzying speed exceeding eight percent of the speed of light at the moment of closest passage.
A UNIQUE EXAM FOR EINSTEIN’S THEORY
This movement around the giant black hole, which has a mass approximately 4.3 million times that of the Sun, provides a critical laboratory for Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. According to the theory, rotating giant masses drag the space-time fabric behind them, causing shifts in the orbits of the objects around them. These deviations in S301’s orbit are expected to reach a level that can be measured directly in about ten years. This development will allow scientists to directly calculate the rotation speed of a supermassive black hole around its axis for the first time in history.
THE ROUTE AFTER A COSMIC SEPARATION
Researchers state that this extremely elliptical orbit of the star indicates that it belonged to a binary star system in the past. It is estimated that one of these two, which came too close to Sagittarius A*, was thrown into deep space at a tremendous speed, while S301 was caught in the strong gravitational network and trapped in this narrow orbit.
EYES ON THE HISTORICAL APPOINTMENT IN 2031
According to astronomers’ calculations, S301 will make its next closest pass to the black hole in 2031. By monitoring this historic rapprochement with new generation giant telescopes, scientists aim to directly examine the fundamental physics rules of the universe.
