# A star in a 15.2-year orbit around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way

@article{Schdel2002ASI,
title={A star in a 15.2-year orbit around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way},
author={Rainer Sch{\"o}del and Thomas Ott and Reinhard Genzel and Reiner Hofmann and Matthew D. Lehnert and Andreas Eckart and Nelly Mouawad and Tal Alexander and Mark J. Reid and Rainer Lenzen and Markus Hartung and François Lacombe and Daniel Rouan and Eric Gendron and G'erard Rousset and Anne-Marie Lagrange and Wolfgang Brandner and Nancy Ageorges and Christopher E. Lidman and A. F. M. Moorwood and Jason Spyromilio and Norbert N. Hubin and Karl M. Menten},
journal={Nature},
year={2002},
volume={419},
pages={694-696}
}
• Published 17 October 2002
• Physics
• Nature
Many galaxies are thought to have supermassive black holes at their centres—more than a million times the mass of the Sun. Measurements of stellar velocities and the discovery of variable X-ray emission have provided strong evidence in favour of such a black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, but have hitherto been unable to rule out conclusively the presence of alternative concentrations of mass. Here we report ten years of high-resolution astrometric imaging that allows us to trace two…
816 Citations
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