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29 September 2026 2518 stories tracked

Gallery · ESO

VLT images of the S301 star orbiting Sagittarius A*

VLT images of the S301 star orbiting Sagittarius A*

This sequence of images, taken with the GRAVITY instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer ( VLTI ), show several stars orbiting Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. One of these stars, known as S301, was recently found to pass much closer to the black hole than any other known star. S301 orbits Sagittarius A* every 8.7 years. At its closest approach — similar to the…

Credit
ESO
Telescope
Very Large Telescope
Release
eso2612a
Licence
CC BY 4.0 — credit required
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