Star S301 breaks speed record in the Milky Way: 8% of light speed around the black hole

Astronomers using the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have discovered the fastest known star in the Milky Way. The celestial body, designated S301, orbits the galaxy's central black hole, Sagittarius A*, on a remarkably tight trajectory.

S301 completes a full orbit around the black hole in just 8.7 years. At its closest approach, it comes within a distance roughly 12 times greater than the separation between Earth and the Sun. During this close encounter, the star accelerates to approximately 25,000 kilometers per second — that is over 8% of the speed of light and about 100,000 times faster than a commercial airliner.

This speed makes S301 the fastest star ever recorded in our galaxy, setting a new benchmark for stellar motion in the Milky Way. Researchers suggest that S301 might have once been part of a binary star system that was torn apart by the immense tidal forces of Sagittarius A*. The discovery was detailed in a report by Science Alert, highlighting the star's extreme velocity and its unique orbital dynamics around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.