'Dancing' star's

'Dancing' star's weird, spirograph orbit proves Einstein right (again)

By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer 3 days ago

The star's orbit creates an ever-changing rosette shape predicted by Einstein's general relativity.

 
 
 
 
 

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An artist's impression of the star S2 precessing around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

(Image: © ESO/L. Calçada)

Einstein's theory of general relativity has been proven right (again!), thanks to the wobbly dance of a high-speed star swirling around the monster black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Astronomers with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have been watching that star — named S2 — orbit our local supermassive black hole for 27 years, taking precise measurements of the star's position and velocity as it swoops around the galactic center, roughly 26,000 light-years from Earth. After watching the star complete nearly two full orbits (each complete orbit takes about 16 years), the researchers concluded that the star does not have a fixed elliptical orbit as predicted by Isaac Newton's theory of gravity, but rather "dances" around the black hole in a pattern that resembles a rosette drawn using a spirograph. /.../