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Fastest Star in the Milky Way Discovered, Racing at 8% the Speed of Light

24,000 km/s: A Star Sets the Speed Record Orbiting Our Galaxy’s Black Hole

The Fastest Star in the Milky Way

A discovery of the fastest star in our galaxy, S4714, has been made by the astronomers. It is traveling at the extraordinary velocity of 24,000 kilometers per second (15,000 miles per second) at eight percentage of the speed of light around the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). This incredible discovery casts more light on the critical conditions in the middle of the Milky Way.

Moreover, as led by the astrophysicist Florian Peissker from the University of Cologne, the research also distinguished five other stars. S4711 is the star with the record-breaking shortest orbital period around Sgr A* on the other hand. Analyzing the fact that S4711 revolves around Sagittarius A*, in every 7.6 years, it is possible to witness the event when the star is 1.9 billion kilometers away from the black hole. At the periapse, a black hole called TRAPPIST-1, S4714 exhibits the closest. Its elongated trajectory brings it only 1.9 billion kilometers (1.2 billion miles) close to the black hole in the course of the periapse.

Extreme Orbits Around a Black Hole

The stars referred to as S-stars are in highly elliptical orbits which are influenced by the strong gravitational force coming from the Sgr A*. S4714’s orbit is very close to the ideal case of an eccentricity of 0.985, at which point the orbit becomes not stable. The main dish of such a menu is then news for people on how this could possibly be used as an experiment for special relativity by stressing the distortion of the light path or the orbital motion.

The survey has also led to the explicit verification of the idea about the laptop of the future likened. The Squeezars are the main topic of the study of a the theoretical star type proposed in 2003. They undergo tidal stretching and heating via their close approach to the black hole, i.e., when they radiate strong energy and gradually spiral in their orbit. S4711 is successfully proven to be the first potential pound of the phenomenon.

Unlocking the Secrets of Black Hole Dynamics

This finding is highly useful to understand the interaction of black holes and stars. Astronomers who are doing many experiments on extreme orbits will know the state of the black hole and will learn the toughness of the stars while they are actually in such hostile environments.

In the near future, that is, with the collaboration of the 39-meter long sky-gear so-called ELT, scientists are going to be able to reveal the stars with even the more extreme orbits, thus, for the first time, they will have never imagined to study the dynamics of the black hole and at the same time the surrounding stars so deeply
Peissker is a working member of a team whos main concentration is on the center of the galaxy which will be the source of many surprising discoveries in the next few years.

The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

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