S0-102
S0-102 is a star in the Galactic Center . It is in orbit around the radio source Sagittarius A * and orbits it once every 11.5 ± 0.3 years. With that he undercuts the previous record holder S0-2 by 5 years. In its orbit, it approaches the center of the Milky Way at 39 billion kilometers (260 AU , or 36 light hours ) and thereby reaches about 1% of the speed of light.
The observation of S0-102 took place over more than one cycle from 1995 to 2012 at the Keck Observatory with the help of adaptive optics and speckle interferometry . Since it is 16 times fainter than the star S0-2 (which is difficult to observe anyway), it was only possible to distinguish it from the infrared background at a late stage. After S0-2, it was the second star whose orbit around the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A * could be measured very precisely.
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- ↑ L. Meyer, AM Ghez , R. Schödel, S. Yelda, A. Boehle, JR Lu, T. Do, MR Morris, EE Becklin , K. Matthews: The Shortest Known Period Star Orbiting our Galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole . October 4, 2012, arxiv : 1210.1294 .
- ↑ Jesse Emspak: Speedy Star Swoops In Perilously Close to Milky Way's Giant Black Hole . October 4, 2012. Retrieved July 5, 2016.