Interstellar Star Found Orbiting Milky Way's Black Hole
Originally Published 2 years ago — by Universe Today
Astronomers have discovered an alien red giant star, S0-6, orbiting the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way. S0-6 and its sibling stars have chemical fingerprints indicating they were born outside the Milky Way, possibly in a nuclear star cluster in a dwarf galaxy. The star's metallicity suggests it is rather metal-poor and has an age of around 10 billion years. As S0-6 spirals closer to the black hole, its motions provide valuable information about the gravitational conditions surrounding Sagittarius A*.