Researchers have discovered a star that whips around the
giant black hole at the center of our galaxy in record time, completing an
orbit every 11.5 years. The finding, appearing today in the journal Science,
points ahead to groundbreaking experiments involving Einstein's general theory
of relativity. Those tests will be fully enabled by the Thirty Meter Telescope
(TMT), slated to begin observations next decade.
The record-setting star, called S0-102, was detected with
the twin 10-meter telescopes at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.