00:00A star called S301 is speeding at more than 8% of the speed of light near the Milky Way's
00:05center.
00:06This star shouldn't even exist!
00:08Yet it's the fastest in a group orbiting the galaxy's supermassive black hole.
00:13The black hole's gravity usually destroys star-forming clouds.
00:16So these stars are a rare find.
00:18Their presence lets astronomers study the galactic center,
00:22which is usually too bright and crowded to see clearly.
00:25Stephan Gillison at the Max Planck Institute says,
00:27It's such a beautiful astronomical system.
00:30We will learn so much.
00:32S301 orbits just 1.8 billion kilometers from the black hole and completes a circuit in 8.7 years.
00:40This makes it a powerful tool to measure the black hole's spin, a property still unknown.
00:45Gillison believes this spin could be measured within a decade.
00:49Understanding it may explain why our black hole is unusually quiet and lacks the energetic jets seen in others.
00:55Disclosure. This video contains stock footage and content created or enhanced using AI-assisted tools.
