Astronomers Discover First Binary Star System Near Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole

The D9 binary system challenges assumptions about extreme gravitational environments and offers new insights into the galactic center.

Researchers have identified a binary star system, named D9, orbiting near Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
This marks the first confirmed detection of a binary star system in such a high-gravity environment, overturning previous beliefs about their instability near black holes.
D9 is estimated to be 2.7 million years old and is expected to merge into a single star within about a million years due to the black hole's gravitational forces.
The discovery sheds light on the mysterious G objects in the S cluster, which may be remnants of merged binary stars or unmerged systems like D9.
Astronomers suggest this finding opens the possibility of detecting planets in the galactic center, as planets often form around young stars like those in D9.