NEW YORK – Astronomers have spotted the fastest star yet detected in the Milky Way, a blisteringly quick object whipping around the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy.
The star is tearing through space at roughly 15,534 miles per second (25,000 kilometers per second) as it circles the black hole — about 100,000 times faster than a commercial airplane.
“That star is really, extremely fast,” said Stefan Gillessen, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics.
The newly identified star is also closer to the black hole than any such star previously observed, completing one orbit in just 8.7 years. Rather than plunging inward, it uses the black hole’s immense gravity to slingshot around at extraordinary speed.
Gillessen and his team found the star while analyzing observations from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The research was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Several hundred stars are known to orbit near the Milky Way’s central giant black hole, where its gravity strongly shapes their paths. Scientists have charted the orbits of about 50 of them. This latest discovery sits 10 times closer than the previous record holder, close enough that it should also be influenced by the black hole’s rotation.
Supermassive black holes are thought to reside at the centers of nearly all large galaxies. Because nothing can escape their grasp, not even light, understanding what happens in their immediate surroundings remains one of astronomy’s toughest challenges.
Stars like this one give researchers a rare way to probe those hidden features, including the spin of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. As more powerful telescopes reveal dimmer stars that were previously out of reach, astronomers may yet uncover objects moving even faster.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said astronomer Tuan Do with the University of California, Los Angeles, who had no role in the study. “As we get fainter, there should be many more stars like this.”
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