8,000 Kilometers per Second: Star with the Shortest Orbital Period Around Black Hole Discovered
upstart writes:
8,000 kilometers per second: Star with the shortest orbital period around black hole discovered:
Researchers at the University of Cologne and Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic) have discovered the fastest known star, which travels around a black hole in record time. The star, S4716, orbits Sagittarius A*, the black hole in the center of our Milky Way, in four years and reaches a speed of around 8,000 kilometers per second. S4716 comes as close as 100 AU (astronomical unit) to the black hole-a small distance by astronomical standards. One AU corresponds to 149,597,870 kilometers. The study has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.
[...] By means of continuously refining methods of analysis, together with observations covering almost twenty years, the scientist now identified without a doubt a star that travels around the central supermassive black hole in just four years. A total of five telescopes observed the star, with four of these five being combined into one large telescope to allow even more accurate and detailed observations. "For a star to be in a stable orbit so close and fast in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole was completely unexpected and marks the limit that can be observed with traditional telescopes," said Peissker.
Journal Reference:
Florian Peiker, Andreas Eckart, Michal Zajaek, and Silke Britzen. Observation of S4716-a Star with a 4 yr Orbit around Sgr A* - IOPscience, [open access] The Astrophysical Journal (DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac752f)
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