{"id":11273,"date":"2026-08-24T16:58:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/?p=11273"},"modified":"2026-08-24T17:01:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T15:01:02","slug":"astronomers-find-strongest-evidence-yet-that-betelgeuse-has-a-companion-eso-press-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/astronomers-find-strongest-evidence-yet-that-betelgeuse-has-a-companion-eso-press-release\/","title":{"rendered":"Milky Way&#8217;s fastest star orbits our supermassive black hole so closely it feels its spin &#8211; ESO Press Release"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">19\/08\/2026 &#8211; Astronomers have discovered the fastest known star in our galaxy, the Milky Way, orbiting the black hole at its centre. The star, named S301, was detected with the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO\u2019s VLTI) and reaches speeds of 25 000 km\/s as it travels around the four-million-Solar-mass black hole. It comes closer to it than any other observed before, so close that it feels the effects of the black hole\u2019s rotation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eso.org\/public\/unitedkingdom\/news\/eso2612\/?lang\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the full story in the ESO Press Release<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/eso2612.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1712\" height=\"592\" src=\"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/eso2612.png\" alt=\"Immagini della stella S301 prese dal VLT. La stella orbita attorno al buco nero centrale della nostra galassia Sagittarius A* (Crediti: ESO\/GRAVITY collaboration)\" class=\"wp-image-11276\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">VLT images of the S301 star orbiting Sagittarius A*\u00a0(Credit: ESO\/GRAVITY collaboration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>19\/08\/2026 &#8211; Astronomers have discovered the fastest known star in our galaxy, the Milky Way, orbiting the black hole at its centre. The star, named S301, was detected with the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO\u2019s VLTI) and reaches speeds of 25 000 km\/s as it travels around the four-million-Solar-mass black hole. It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,30],"tags":[390,771,430,365],"class_list":["post-11273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","category-scientific-news","tag-eso-2","tag-s301-star","tag-sagittarius-a-2","tag-vlt"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/eso2612.png",1712,592,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/eso2612.png",150,52,false],"medium":["https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/eso2612.png",300,104,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/eso2612.png",768,266,false],"large":["https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/eso2612.png",1024,354,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/eso2612.png",1536,531,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/eso2612.png",1712,592,false]},"post_excerpt_stackable":"<p>19\/08\/2026 &#8211; Astronomers have discovered the fastest known star in our galaxy, the Milky Way, orbiting the black hole at its centre. The star, named S301, was detected with the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO\u2019s VLTI) and reaches speeds of 25 000 km\/s as it travels around the four-million-Solar-mass black hole. It comes closer to it than any other observed before, so close that it feels the effects of the black hole\u2019s rotation. Read the full story in the ESO Press Release VLT images of the S301 star orbiting Sagittarius A*\u00a0(Credit: ESO\/GRAVITY collaboration)<\/p>\n","category_list":"<a href=\"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/category\/news-en\/\" rel=\"category tag\">News<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/category\/news-en\/scientific-news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Scientific news<\/a>","author_info":{"name":"Maria Rosa Panzera","url":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/author\/maria-rosa-panzera\/"},"comments_num":"0 comments","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11273"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11280,"href":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11273\/revisions\/11280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brera.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}