Scientists have discovered two young stars orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, providing a rare glimpse into how stars endure in strong gravitational fields. The stars, known as D9, are locked in a dance with the black hole and will remain intact for about 1 million years before succumbing to its gravity.
The discovery was made possible by using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) to monitor changes in the orbit of mysterious G objects near the galaxy’s center. The team noticed that one object’s orbit was wobbling strangely, which revealed a regular pattern caused by the Doppler Effect. Further analysis confirmed that this was two stars caught in a gravitational dance around our galaxy’s center.
The D9 stars are estimated to be about 2.7 million years old and weigh roughly 2.8 times and 0.7 times the mass of the sun, respectively. They are orbiting Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) at a distance of just 0.095 light-years, making them one of the closest stars to a black hole.
The discovery has implications for our understanding of how stars behave near supermassive black holes and raises the possibility of finding planets in these regions. According to astronomer Florian Peißker, “Black holes are not as destructive as we thought” due to the ability of some stellar pairs to hang on near them.
The study provides a rare window into cosmic timescales and highlights the potential for technological advancements in detecting hidden stars and planets. The discovery could also shed light on why similar binary pairs have not been detected near our galaxy’s center, possibly due to the extreme gravity exerted by black holes.
This breakthrough suggests that the detection of planets in the galactic center may be just a matter of time, according to Peißker. As young stars are often accompanied by planets, the discovery of these binary stars also raises hopes for finding orbiting worlds near black holes.
Source: https://www.livescience.com/space/black-holes/scientists-discover-2-stars-orbiting-our-galaxys-supermassive-black-hole-in-lockstep-and-they-could-point-to-a-type-of-planet-never-seen-before