Discovery of a Record-Breaking S Star
Using the Very Large Telescope, researchers have added a new member to the population of S stars that circle Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy. These stars are known for their extremely tight orbits around the central mass.
The newly found star reaches an orbital speed of over 8000 km/s at its closest approach, making it the fastest S star observed to date. At periapsis it passes within less than 10 astronomical units of the black hole, setting a new record for proximity among this stellar group.
Such extreme kinematics provide a powerful laboratory for examining relativistic phenomena in a strong gravitational field. The Lense-Thirring effect, which predicts a dragging of spacetime by a rotating mass, should manifest as a measurable precession of the star's orbit that can be tracked with high precision.
Future observations with upgraded instruments such as GRAVITY+ at the VLT Interferometer aim to monitor the star's trajectory with even greater detail. This will enable not only a stringent test of the Lense-Thirring effect but also searches for subtle deviations from Einstein's theory of general relativity.