The powerful Lasers from the twin Keck telescopes of the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea point to the center of the Milky Way galaxy, where scientists have establish a second star orbiting a super massive black hole. Now a day’s Scientists using the Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea have originate a second star in a surprisingly fast orbit around the black hole at the middle of the Milky Way galaxy.
The discovery, published world today in the great journal Science, may help astronomers determine if Einstein was right in his fundamental calculation of how black holes warp space and time, said UCLA physicist Andrea Ghez, organizer of the discovery group.
The shining star, known as S0-102, orbits the black hole in 11.5 years, a virtual sprint that allows astronomers to study an entire orbit for perturbations that offer clues to the black hole’s structure. Let’s before this finding, astronomers knew of only 1 star near the black hole with a very short orbit: S0-2, which completes a circuit (CKT) in 16 years. Both are in the assemblage Sagittarius.