{"id":606210,"date":"2026-08-27T12:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T12:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/606210\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T12:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T12:52:09","slug":"fastest-star-in-the-galaxy-could-unlock-black-hole-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/606210\/","title":{"rendered":"Fastest star in the galaxy could unlock black hole secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"

This video shows the fastest star in the galaxy, S301, as it orbits the supermassive black hole<\/a> at the center of the Milky Way<\/a> galaxy. When closest to the black hole (named Sagittarius A*<\/a>), the star moves at more than 8% the speed of light. Astronomers are hoping to see the influence of the warped space-time around the black hole on the star\u2019s orbit. This would reveal, for the 1st time, the spin of the black hole. Video via ESO<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Fastest star in the galaxy could unlock black hole secrets<\/p>\n

Astronomers have discovered the fastest star in the Milky Way<\/a> galaxy. They call it S301, and it moves at more than 8% the speed of light, or 56 million miles per hour (25,000 km\/s), as it orbits the central supermassive black hole<\/a> in our galaxy.<\/p>\n

But the real triumph in discovering this star, the European Southern Observatory said<\/a> on August 19, 2026, is that it can unlock the mystery of our central black hole\u2019s spin.<\/p>\n

S301 is the closest star to the Milky Way\u2019s black hole that astronomers have yet discovered. It lies just 12 Earth-sun distances (12 AU<\/a>) from the mammoth gravity well. Co-author Reinhard Genzel<\/a> of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany said<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Decades carefully tracking stars orbiting our galaxy\u2019s central black hole, Sagittarius A*, have led to this breakthrough discovery of a very promising star. Because it orbits so close to Sagittarius A*, S301 opens a new window to the fundamental properties of spacetime in this extreme black-hole environment.<\/p>\n

The researchers published<\/a> their peer-reviewed<\/a> study on August 19, 2026, in the journal Nature.<\/p>\n

Speeding through a warped space-time environment<\/p>\n

S301 has an elliptical (oval-shaped) orbit, so it\u2019s not always 12 AU from our supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*<\/a>. That is the closest it gets in its orbit. But the orbit is speedy, whipping around the black hole once every 8.7 years. <\/p>\n

Astronomers have already found data from the Very Large Telescope Interferometer<\/a> to reveal one orbit of the swift star around the black hole. They hope to get even better data for a second orbit once the Extremely Large Telescope<\/a> comes online around 2030.<\/p>\n

S301 gets so close to Sagittarius A* in its orbit that astronomers think it could be affected by the rotating black hole. This rotation is something astronomers have been itching to measure.<\/p>\n

According to Einstein\u2019s theory of general relativity<\/a>, a massive object such as Sagittarius A* will warp the space-time around it. So, astronomers are hoping that when S301 is at its closest to the supermassive black hole, they\u2019ll be able to detect the warp of space-time in the speedy star\u2019s orbit. That would help them measure the spin of the black hole for the first time. Co-author Felix Mang<\/a> of MPE said: <\/p>\n

With this star we hope to measure, within the next 10 years, the spin of the black hole. That would be a dream come true.<\/p>\n

\"FastestThese are images from the GRAVITY\u00a0instrument at ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI<\/a>). The bright dot near bottom left is the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*<\/a>. The other dots are stars circling the black hole. The solid line is the path S301 has already completed. And the dimmer, dashed line marks the path it will follow next. Image via ESO<\/a>\/ Gravity Collaboration.
\nHow did the star get so close?<\/p>\n

S301 is the closest star we know of to the Milky Way\u2019s central black hole. Mang said: <\/p>\n

What is special about this star is that it\u2019s orbiting Sagittarius A* on a very tight orbit, taking just 8.7 years to complete it, and is approaching the black hole at a mere 12 times the distance of Earth to the sun. That is unprecedented.<\/p>\n

So how did this star get so unprecedentedly close to the black hole? It couldn\u2019t have formed there, because the gravitational tugs from the black hole wouldn\u2019t have allowed any clouds of gas and dust to coalesce into stars. Therefore, astronomers think the star migrated there. They say it was likely after this star and its binary pair felt the tidal yank of the supermassive black hole. One got flung away from the black hole, while the other was pulled toward it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s fortunate for us, because now \u2013 thanks to a speedy star with a short orbit \u2013 astronomers can continue to unlock the mysteries of Sagittarius A* and help bolster Einstein\u2019s general theory of relativity. Co-author Juan Osorno<\/a> of LIRA Observatoire de Paris\u2013PSL, France, said: <\/p>\n

For the first time, we would actually be able to measure very directly the spin of a massive black hole, which would be a key test of Einstein\u2019s theory. Without this star, we would need to measure the motion of other stars for several more decades to get anywhere close to measuring the spin of the black hole.<\/p>\n

Watch the black hole pull in the fastest star<\/p>\n

This animation shows how the fastest known star \u2013 S301 \u2013 likely came to orbit the supermassive black hole so closely. Initially, the 2 stars orbit each other. But as they near the black hole, the tidal forces pull S301 in, while yeeting<\/a> the other star into a new neighborhood. Video via ESO<\/a>\/ L. Cal\u00e7ada, M. Kornmesser.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: Astronomers have discovered the fastest star in the galaxy. It\u2019s orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, and it could reveal the black hole\u2019s spin.<\/p>\n

Source: Discovery of a star sensitive to the spin of Sagittarius A*<\/a><\/p>\n

Via ESO<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more: Astronomers discover a black hole star, a new type of object<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more: A first! 3 supermassive black holes discovered in 1 galaxy<\/a><\/p>\n

Kelly Kizer Whitt
\n View Articles<\/a><\/p>\n

About the Author:<\/p>\n

Kelly Kizer Whitt writes and edits some of the most fascinating stories at EarthSky.org. She’s been writing about science, with a focus on astronomy, for decades. She began her career at Astronomy Magazine and made regular contributions to other outlets, including AstronomyToday and the Sierra Club. She has nine published books, including a children’s picture book, Solar System Forecast, and a young adult dystopian novel, A Different Sky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This video shows the fastest star in the galaxy, S301, as it orbits the supermassive black hole at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-606210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}