Astronomers discover star orbiting dangerously close to black hole

Alex Lasker

By: Nathan Rousseau Smith, Buzz60

NASA just released an illustration of a black hole they've spotted swallowing a white dwarf.

The star is moving so fast that it can complete an orbit 2.5 times the distance between our Earth and the moon in just half an hour. That means it's covering 3.7 million miles twice an hour.

For reference, it takes 28 days for the moon to circle the Earth, so we're talking some serious speed!


Photo: NASA

NASA is calling it the "tightest orbital dance ever witnessed" between a black hole and a star.

All this action is happening about 14,800 light years from Earth on the outskirts of the Milky Way called 47 Tucanae.

For a while astronomers initially thought the X9 star system was a pair of stars orbiting each other.

Black holes are known to rip apart stars, but according to a study by the University of Alberta and MSU, the little star is safe for now.

Learn more about black holes:

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