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Sagittarius A *, the supermassive black hole At the center of the galaxy, the Milky Way is surrounded by stars in orbit thanks to its enormous gravitational force. For decades, astronomers have been observing a specific star in this region, and new research shows once again that Albert Einstein He knew one or two things about gravity.
In a study published Thursday in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, researchers first revealed that a star “dances.” Sagittarius A * it moves just like Einstein predicted with his general theory of relativity. The team of scientists studied the star for 27 years using the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile, hoping to uncover the mysteries of the gigantic black hole at the heart of our galaxy.
Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity predicted that a star would orbit the black hole elliptically, but the researchers discovered that S2’s orbit is actually rosette-shaped around the black hole, which is 26,000 light-years from the sun.
“Einstein’s General Relativity predicts that the bound orbits of one object around another are not closed, as in Newtonian gravity, but advance forward in the plane of motion. This famous effect, first seen in the orbit of the planet Mercury around the Sun, was the first evidence in favor of General Relativity, “co-author Reinhard Genzel said in a press release.
ESO / L. Calçada
“A hundred years later, we have detected the same effect on the motion of a star orbiting the compact Sagittarius A * radio source in the center of the Milky Way,” he continued. “This observational advancement strengthens the evidence that Sagittarius A * must be a supermassive black hole 4 million times the mass of the Sun.”
At its closest point, S2 is less than 20 billion km (approximately 12.5 billion miles) from Sagittarius A *, a distance that is 120 times the distance from the sun to Earth, making it a of the closest stars ever observed orbiting the black hole. It took researchers decades to study the star, as it only completes one orbit every 16 years.
The ever-changing motion of S2 exactly matches that predicted by Einstein’s theory. The rosette effect, known as the Schwarzschild precession, has never before been measured for a star around a supermassive black hole, the scientists said.
ESO / L. Calçada / spaceengine.org
The research not only further confirms Einstein’s theory, but also provides crucial information about the area surrounding Sagittarius A *.
“Because S2 measurements follow General Relativity very well, we can set strict limits on the amount of invisible material, such as distributed dark matter or possible smaller black holes, that is present around Sagittarius A *. This is very interest in understanding the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes, “said chief scientists Guy Perrin and Karine Perraut.
Using ESO’s new telescope, the team of scientists hopes to find stars orbiting even closer to the supermassive black hole.
“If we’re lucky, we could capture stars close enough that they really feel the rotation, the spin, of the black hole,” said co-author Andreas Eckart of the University of Cologne.
If they find closer stars, astronomers could measure both rotation and mass, defining the space and time around Sagittarius A *. “That would be a completely different level of relativity testing again,” said Eckart.
