Stars orbiting the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way

This time-lapse video from the NACO instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile shows stars orbiting the supermassive black hole that lies at the heart of the Milky Way over a period of nearly 20 years.

Credit:
ESO/MPE

[Bromon]

Coolest part of this timelapse to me is that you can see gravitational lensing as the stars approach their closest point in orbit around the black hole.

[SacredDaturaa]

There is something primally unsettling about seeing entire stars being ripped around an eldritch centerpoint we can't even see.

[SuperMrBentley]

so this footage represents a 20 year time lapse? incredible...

[vloya]

20 years sounds like a lot of time, but when I think about that that's a literal star moving around an even bigger black hole... that's incredible. It must be moving super fast!

[notafile]

The universe is such a terrifying, yet amazing place.

[fantic]

The amount of gravity it takes to do that to those massive stars is mind blowing. That thing must be huge.

[mathislamiaux]

20 year of observation for 20sec vidéo 😮

[abheekgulati]

This is incredible, and so is the fact that we've actually captured such footage. Sometimes we don't appreciate humanity enough, awesome job guys thank you so much for bringing this stuff out to everyone!

[mimwarlick]

Seen this dozens of times…can’t get enough of it. The physicist that made this is a badass.

[JJ-tetx]

Crazy how it kinda of looks like something you would see under a microscope.

[axnyslie]

It kind of looks like viewing bacteria under a microscope.

[HanLeh]

How can something amazing like this only have 290.000 views?
Amazing what mankind is able to observe and how far science has brought us.

Interesting how this Video may look in 20 or 40 years with new data added.

[jeffg]

The craziest thing is, this happened and then we had ~26, 000 years to figure out how to film it. 🤯

[bxlxnse]

DAMN YOU CAN ALSO SEE THE DISTORTION WOW

[daliilars]

I don't even wanna imagine the scale of what's happening here. In fact, I don't think I can.

[natjam]

Supposedly the star that zips around the black hole reached 9% the speed of light at periapsis. That's insane to think about

[adamforest]

Look how everything is in motion!! So amazing ty ELT

[Pink_Velvt]

This is definitely the most impressive video I have ever seen!

[tongsaachai]

according to Einstein time is slower around great mass such as black hole. Even though stars travel fast around black hole, it still feels relatively 'slow' for observer on the surface of the star. Am i correct

[uh-ooooh]

I know everyone is saying that it looks like looking under a microscope, but it freaks me out that those are stars. Literal stars just being thrown around. That is some One Punch Man power level nonsense but it's real and it's out there.