Small stars swarm around the black hole – ‘like a chaotic swarm of bees’

A new study offers insight into young stars. These are located near the black hole in our galaxy. There are two central findings.

FRANKFURT – Space is full of unsolved mysteries that scientists are tracking. In 2023, a newly discovered small star called X3a near the black hole in our galaxy (Sagittarius A*) is causing a stir. The assumption is that it shouldn’t actually be there. Researchers originally assumed that only ancient stars could settle near a black hole.

Now astronomical observations provide new insights into young stars. This comes from one Stady Research team from Germany and the Czech Republic. Like scientists in one press release reported that small stars close to the Sagittarius A* black hole behave differently than initially expected. The researchers reached two central findings.

Study at a glance:

• Title of the study: “Young stellar objects in the S cluster: kinematic analysis of a subset of low-mass G objects close to Sgr A*”
• Published in a trade magazine Astronomy and astrophysics In June 2024
• Researchers from different universities participate in it: the University of Cologne, Masaryk University in Brno, Charles University in Prague, the Academy of Sciences (all three in the Czech Republic), the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn.

Small stars orbit the black hole at a speed of several thousand kilometers per second

According to the results of the study, newborn stars move in orbits similar to known high-velocity stars – so-called S stars. The behavior of young stars and S stars is the same. “This means that small stars are also orbiting around the black hole at a speed of several thousand kilometers per second in just a few years,” the doctor said. Florian Biesecker. He is the first author of the study and conducts research at the Institute of Astrophysics at the University of Cologne.

New insights into young stars – ‘like a chaotic swarm of bees’

As a result of the second study, the authors confirm that newborn stars – such as S stars – arrange themselves in a specific arrangement around the black hole. According to Brisker, there is a “certain preferred direction for the stars.”

“The distribution of both star types is disk-like, which indicates that the black hole forces stars to settle into organized orbits,” the scientist said. The combination of these two stars looks “like a chaotic swarm of bees,” according to the press release about the study.

Meanwhile, astronomers observed a black hole waking up for the first time.