The fastest star ever observed in the Milky Way has been spotted by astronomers.
Named S301, the star is travelling at an astonishing 25,000 kilometres per second, roughly 8% of the speed of light and, by far, the highest stellar velocity ever recorded in our galaxy.
The star’s extraordinary speed is the result of its close orbit around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.
The discovery was made by an international team of researchers using the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile.
S301 follows an extremely elliptical orbit, bringing it closer to Sagittarius A* than any other known star.
Scientists estimate that the black hole is about 4.3 million times more massive than the Sun.
Astronomers have been studying stars in this region since the early 1990s. So far, around 40 so-called S-stars have been recorded orbiting Sagittarius A*.
The immense gravitational pull of the black hole accelerates these stars to extreme speeds.
By monitoring S301’s orbit over the coming years, researchers hope to measure the black hole’s properties and spin, gathering enough data to gain new insights into its nature and behaviour.
