Newly Discovered Object is So Close to the Milky Way’s Central Black Hole it’s Experiencing Warped Spacetime

An international team of astronomers led by the Infrared/Submillimetre Group at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) has discovered a star, S301, so close to the Milky Way’s central black hole, Sagittarius A*, that it is experiencing warped spacetime. The star has an orbital period of only 8.7 years, making it the star with the shortest recorded orbital period and the tightest ever observed in the galaxy’s center. The research team claims this close approach makes it the star with the shortest recorded orbital period and the tightest ever observed in the galaxy’s center. The star’s orbit is ten times closer to the Galactic Center than “our previous best star.” The phenomenon is explained by the Lense-Thirring effect, which is caused by the rotation of Sagittarius A* and the Schwarzschild Precession, a relativistic effect that occurs in the vicinity of a massive, rotating black hole.

• S301 has an orbital period of 8.7 years.
• The star is ten times closer to Sagittarius A* than "our previous best star."
• The star’s orbit deviates significantly from the path predicted by Newton’s classical theory of gravitation.
• The team notes that S301 is the first star to orbit directly in the region around Sagittarius A* where the frame-dragging effect is extreme.

The discovery of S301 is a historic first, as it provides evidence of relativistic effects that occur only in the immediate vicinity of a massive, spinning object like a black hole. The research team used the GRAVITY instrument at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) to observe the star. The instrument’s exceptional resolution allows astronomers to observe stars at the center of the Milky Way on scales comparable to the size of our solar system, even when they are extremely faint. The study, "Discovery of a star sensitive to the spin of Sagittarius A*," was published in Nature.

The discovery of S301 is a significant milestone in astrophysics, as it provides direct evidence of relativistic effects near a supermassive black hole. The star’s orbit deviates from Newtonian predictions, indicating the presence of relativistic effects. The research team’s findings are expected to lead to further discoveries about the nature of spacetime and the behavior of massive objects in the universe. The study highlights the potential for future observations using advanced instruments like GRAVITY+ and MICADO to explore the universe in unprecedented detail.

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