Astronomers discover the fastest star ever observed in the Milky Way

There are different types of stars in the universe, and some of them have surprising properties and behaviors. While some scientists have detected a rare brown dwarf orbiting a massive star, others have made a remarkable discovery.

Named S301, this celestial object is located near Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. It was first detected in 2023 with the Gravity instrument on the Very Large Telescope. Recently, its motion has been tracked, revealing a highly elongated orbit. Given its behavior, researchers believe it was part of a binary system that came too close to the supermassive black hole, trapping S301 and ejecting its companion star.

But what makes S301 truly remarkable is its incredible speed. Indeed, it travels at about 15,500 miles per second, which is 8% of the speed of light. On this subject, Felix Mang, a Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, said in a statement: 

"What is special about this star is that it's orbiting Sagittarius A* on a very tight orbit, taking just 8.7 years to complete it, and is approaching the black hole at a mere 12 times the distance of Earth to the sun. That is unprecedented."

Furthermore, this star could be of great help to astronomers. In fact, they may be able to measure the rotation of Sagittarius A* for the first time, even though it will take about ten years to carry out these measurements.