Astronomers have discovered a pair of young stars near the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy. And despite living so close to the cosmic behemoth, they are likely to remain intact for a million years.
While our pocket of the universe is home to a solitary sun, that's not the norm. More than half of all stars in the sky have one or more companions, yet until now, none have been found near a supermassive black hole. Astronomers attribute this absence to the extreme gravity black holes, which tug unevenly on nearby stars, making such multiple-star systems unstable and potentially kicking one of them out on lonely, high-speed journeys through the Milky Way.
