Scientists have discovered a new record holder among stars that revolve very quickly around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. It is the star closest to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, Science Alert reports..

According to the researchers, the star moves around the black hole at a speed of more than 2.5% of the speed of light..

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Even though the center of the Milky Way is relatively calm compared to other galaxies, the environment around Sagittarius A* stands out. A black hole is a monster whose mass is four million times the mass of the sun. Before astronomers confirmed its existence with a direct image, they inferred its presence and calculated its mass based on a star locked in orbit around Sgr A*.

This star, S2, is just one of a group called S stars.. They move in long elliptical orbits, at one end of which is Sagittarius A *. During the study, a team of scientists led by Florian Peisker from the University of Cologne in Germany studied these stars..

“S2 behaves like a big person sitting in front of you in a movie theater: it blocks your view of what is important. Therefore, the view of the center of our galaxy is often obscured by S2. However, in short moments, we can observe the vicinity of the central black hole,” Peisker explained..

New star named S4716. Scientists have calculated that at the point of closest approach to the black hole, the star is at a distance of 15 billion kilometers from it, which is about 100 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.. When a star approaches a black hole, its speed reaches 8,000 kilometers per second..

It is neither the closest nor the fastest S star to the center of the galaxy.. This honor belongs to the star S4714, which was also discovered by Peisker and his colleagues.. It approaches Sgr A * at 1.9 billion kilometers, reaching speeds of up to 24 thousand kilometers per second.

But the orbital period of S4714 is 12 years, while S4716 completes a rotation in four years.. This means that the newly discovered luminary has the shortest average distance to a black hole during its orbital movement of all known S-stars..

“Finding a star in a stable orbit so close and fast in close proximity to a supermassive black hole was completely unexpected and marks the limit that can be observed with traditional telescopes,” Peisker said..

At the moment, scientists cannot say how S4716 got so close to the black hole.. The researchers note that the luminaries cannot form so close to this object.. This means that the star was somehow transferred to Sagittarius A *. How this happened remains to be seen..