https://astrodon.social/@esoastronomy/113669009506943775 esoastronomy@astrodon.social - After all, black holes are not as destructive as we thought! 😮

Using our Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered, for the first time ever, a binary star close to our galaxy's supermassive black hole. Binary stars are extremely common throughout the galaxy but not close to the black hole, which makes this new system really interesting!

Named D9, it looks like a single dot, but its speed wobbles periodically back and forth, revealing that this is in fact two stars orbiting each other as they move together around the black hole.

Interested? Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2418/

Video summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQVG7pqcHTc

📷 ESO/F. Peißker et al., S. Guisard

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