Despite their ancient ages tagged posts

New Research Traces the Fates of Stars Living Near the Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

Stellar collisions produce strange, zombie-like survivors
This illustration shows the orbits of stars very close to Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Credit: ESO / L. Calçada / Spaceengine.org

Despite their ancient ages, some stars orbiting the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole appear deceptively youthful. But unlike humans, who might appear rejuvenated from a fresh round of collagen injections, these stars look young for a much darker reason.

They ate their neighbors.

This is just one of the more peculiar findings from new Northwestern University research. Using a new model, astrophysicists traced the violent journeys of 1,000 simulated stars orbiting our galaxy’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*).

So densely packed with stars, the region commonly experiences b...

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