Massive stars, due to their short lifetime and high energy output, drive the evolution of galaxies across cosmic time. Hence, they substantially contribute to shaping the present-day Universe. The Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) will unravel the “habitats of massive stars across cosmic time”. “Habitats” are the gaseous environments within which massive stars are born and which they interact with via their feedback. Over the anticipated 12-year lifetime of this new CRC initiative, we aim to connect the physical processes that govern the habitats of massive stars across the full range of environments hosting massive stars – from sub-parsec to mega-parsec scales and from the Milky Way to the high-redshift Universe, where massive stars leave their cosmological fingerprint by driving cosmic reionisation.
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A3: Exploring the Evolution of Stellar Multiplicity in Massive Star-Forming Clusters (Emma Bordier, Chinmaya Nagar)
- ESO news: First ever binary star found near our galaxy’s supermassive black hole
Original Article by European Southern Observatory: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2418/
Article by An international team of researchers has detected a binary star orbiting close to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. It is the first time a stellar pair has been found in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole. The discovery, based on data collected by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), helps us understand how stars survive in environments with extreme gravity, and could pave the way for the detection of planets close to Sagittarius A*.
“Black holes are not as destructive as we thought,” says Florian Peißker, a researcher at the University of Cologne, Germany, and lead author of the study published today in Nature Communications. Binary stars, pairs of stars orbiting each other, are very common in the Universe, but they had never before been found near a supermassive black hole, where the intense gravity can make stellar systems unstable.
This new discovery shows that some binaries can briefly thrive, even under destructive conditions. D9, as the newly discovered binary star is called, was detected just in time: it is estimated to be only 2.7 million years old, and the strong gravitational force of the nearby black hole will probably cause it to merge into a single star within just one million years, a very narrow timespan for such a young system.
“This provides only a brief window on cosmic timescales to observe such a binary system — and we succeeded!” explains co-author Emma Bordier, a researcher also at the University of Cologne and a former student at ESO.
For many years, scientists also thought that the extreme environment near a supermassive black hole prevented new stars from forming there. Several young stars found in close proximity to Sagittarius A* have disproved this assumption. The discovery of the young binary star now shows that even stellar pairs have the potential to form in these harsh conditions. “The D9 system shows clear signs of the presence of gas and dust around the stars, which suggests that it could be a very young stellar system that must have formed in the vicinity of the supermassive black hole,” explains co-author Michal Zajaček, a researcher at Masaryk University, Czechia, and the University of Cologne.
The newly discovered binary was found in a dense cluster of stars and other objects orbiting Sagittarius A*, called the S cluster. Most enigmatic in this cluster are the G objects, which behave like stars but look like clouds of gas and dust.
It was during their observations of these mysterious objects that the team found a surprising pattern in D9. The data obtained with the VLT’s ERIS instrument, combined with archival data from the SINFONI instrument, revealed recurring variations in the velocity of the star, indicating D9 was actually two stars orbiting each other. “I thought that my analysis was wrong,” Peißker says, “but the spectroscopic pattern covered about 15 years, and it was clear this detection is indeed the first binary observed in the S cluster.”
The results shed new light on what the mysterious G objects could be. The team proposes that they might actually be a combination of binary stars that have not yet merged and the leftover material from already merged stars.
The precise nature of many of the objects orbiting Sagittarius A*, as well as how they could have formed so close to the supermassive black hole, remain a mystery. But soon, the GRAVITY+ upgrade to the VLT Interferometer and the METISinstrument on ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), under construction in Chile, could change this. Both facilities will allow the team to carry out even more detailed observations of the Galactic centre, revealing the nature of known objects and undoubtedly uncovering more binary stars and young systems. “Our discovery lets us speculate about the presence of planets, since these are often formed around young stars. It seems plausible that the detection of planets in the Galactic centre is just a matter of time,” concludes Peißker.
This research was presented in the paper “A binary system in the S cluster close to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*” published today in Nature Communications (doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54748-3).
The team is composed of F. Peißker (Institute of Physics I, University of Cologne, Germany [University of Cologne]), M. Zajaček (Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia; University of Cologne), L. Labadie (University of Cologne), E. Bordier (University of Cologne), A. Eckart (University of Cologne; Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany), M. Melamed (University of Cologne), and V. Karas (Astronomical Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia).
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration for astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as survey telescopes such as VISTA. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates ALMA on Chajnantor, a facility that observes the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society.
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This image indicates the location of the newly discovered binary star D9, which is orbiting Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. It is the first star pair ever found near a supermassive black hole. The cut-out shows the binary system as detected by the SINFONI spectrograph on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. While the two stars cannot be discerned separately in this image, the binary nature of D9 was revealed by the spectra captured by SINFONI over several years. These spectra showed that the light emitted by hydrogen gas around D9 oscillates periodically towards red and blue wavelengths as the two stars orbit each other.
Credit:ESO/F. Peißker et al., S. Guisard
Two stars have been found orbiting each other in the vicinity of Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. A young binary star system forming and surviving in this extreme gravity means that black holes are not as destructive as we thought. This video summarises the discovery.
For more details, check: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2418/
Credit:
ESOThe animation shows D9, the first ever star pair discovered near Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. We zoom in and out on the black hole and the single stars orbiting it, to then get close to D9, the first ever binary star system found in its vicinity. The video, which was made by an artist at the Brno Observatory and Planetarium, shows how the star system orbits the black hole. It also reveals the dusty gas cloud in which the star pair is enveloped, which suggests it is a young star system. The formation and survival of a binary star system in this extreme environment means that black holes are not as destructive as we thought. This animation was made possible thanks to a Czech Science Foundation Junior Star grant (GM24-10599M).
Credit:
P. Karas (Brno Observatory and Planetarium), RSA Cosmos Sky Explorer. Acknowledgements: M. Zajaček, F. Peißker and Czech Science FoundationThe animation shows how the two stars of the D9 star system orbit each other, enveloped in a cloud of gas and dust. The blue line indicates the orbit of the binary system around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. D9 is the first ever binary star found near a supermassive black hole. Its formation and survival in this extreme environment means that black holes are not as destructive as we thought.
Credit:
ESO/M. KornmesserContact:
Emma Bordier
Institute of Physics 1, University of Cologne
Cologne, Germany
Tel: +49 221 470 3548
E-Mail:Florian Peißker
Institute of Physics 1, University of Cologne
Cologne, Germany
Tel: +49 221 470 7791
E-Mail:
- ESO news: First ever binary star found near our galaxy’s supermassive black hole
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