For the first time, researchers have spotted a binary star — a system of two stars that orbit each other — near the Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Binary stars have been observed elsewhere in the universe as a common occurrence, but never in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole.
The pair of stars, dubbed D9, was revealed from data collected by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. Presented in a new Nature Communications study, the discovery of D9 has proved that binary stars can briefly endure the extreme gravitational forces generated by black holes with substantial proportions like Sgr A*.
“Black holes are not as destructive as we thought,” said Florian Peißker, lead author of the new study and a researcher at the University of Cologne, Germany, in a statement.
