The fastest star ever observed

A team of researchers has seen the fastest moving star ever. In her paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, the group describes their observation and study of stars circling near the black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and what they observed.

Space scientists have known for some time that there is a black hole near the center of the Milky Way galaxy (Sagittarius A *), and have theoretically known that there are stars that are very close – known as squeezars, they are believed to orbit so close to the black hole that they are accelerated to incredible speeds during parts of their orbit. In their work, the researchers studied a group of stars that exist near the black hole, each beginning with the letter “S” to indicate what is closest to Sagittarius A *.

Previous research had identified a star called S2 as probably the closest to Sagittarius A *, and at its closest to the black hole was measured to travel at about 3% of the speed of light. Then last year, with this new attempt, researchers found another star that ran closer to the black hole and therefore traveled even faster, at about 6.7% the speed of light. Since then, the team has continued to study the fast moving stars and they have found five more that seem to travel even faster: S4714, S4711, S4713 and S4715.

Of these, two are striking of the others – S4714 and S4711. S4711 is a blue star with an orbit shorter than S2, suggesting that it may be the closest of all stars to the black hole. And S4714 has proven to be the fastest of them all – it has a longer orbit, but its orbit is elliptical, which means it is long, so it may take time to pick up more speed as it gets closer to the black hole – up to 24,000 kilometers per second, or about 8% of the speed of light. The researchers suggest that the stars are good squeezar candidates, especially S4714 and. S4711.

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