The fastest star in our galaxy moves at 8 per cent the speed of light

By Leah Crane

The region around Sagittarius A*

NASA/CXC/Univ. of Wisconsin/Y.Bai et al.

Astronomers have spotted the fastest star ever, moving at 8 per cent of the speed of light. The star, called S4714, orbits close to the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way and could be the best place in the galaxy to test Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

It is hard to spot stars orbiting Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s central black hole, because the galaxy gets increasingly crowded the closer you get to its middle. Florian Peissker at the University of Cologne in Germany …