At the centre of the Milky Way near a supermassive black hole is a 10 billion year old star from another galaxy

Japanese scientists were the first in the world to prove that in the centre of the Milky Way there is a star that came to us from another galaxy. It is located in the vicinity of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*.

Here's What We Know

The star has been labelled S0-6 and is an S type. A typical characteristic of such objects is an elongated, long-periodic orbit. Scientists observed the star for 8 years and found that it revolved around a supermassive black hole, being only 0.04 light years away from it.

Understand where S0-6 came from, helped spectral analysis. Scientists estimated the age of the star at 10 billion years, ie, it is younger than our galaxy only 3 billion years. The chemical composition of the object suggests that it was formed outside the Milky Way, after which it was captured by a supermassive black hole, near which it is impossible for new stars to appear.

Over the billions of years of its existence, the Milky Way absorbed several dwarf galaxies that surrounded it. Scientists believe that it was in one of these and formed the star S0-6.

Source: Science Alert