According to a paper published in the journal Nature Communications on the 17th, scientists have discovered a binary star system near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This is also the first pair of stars discovered near supermassive black holes to date, and although such systems have long been predicted, they have yet to be detected. This discovery provides new insights into the dynamics and evolution of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The mass of supermassive black holes ranges from 1 million to 10 billion times that of the Sun, and the theory suggests that such "monster level" celestial bodies lurk at the centers of all galaxies, including the Milky Way. The black hole Sagittarius A * located at the center of the Milky Way is the closest supermassive black hole to Earth. On the evening of May 12, 2022, Beijing time, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaborative organization released a "groundbreaking achievement" - the first photo of the black hole Sagittarius A *, which is also the first black hole photo ever obtained by humans. Sagittarius A * is surrounded by high-speed stars and dusty celestial bodies, collectively known as the S star cluster. People predicted the existence of a binary system in the S star cluster (two stars orbiting around the same center of gravity, constrained by gravity), but it had never been detected before. Previous studies have suggested that such stars are unlikely to exist stably due to their interaction with Sagittarius A *. A research team from the University of Cologne in Germany has detected a binary star system for the first time in the S star cluster using archival data from the Very Large Telescope and Keck Telescope. The system is called D9 and consists of binary stars D9a and D9b. It is relatively young, estimated to be around 2.7 million years old, and may have formed outside the S star cluster. Further analysis indicates that the stable period of this system within the S star cluster has come to an end: due to the influence of the black hole, the two parts of the binary system may merge in the near future. The detection of D9 indicates that this type of binary system can persist in the S star cluster for about 1 million years after migrating from outside to inside. These findings also provide new insights for astronomers to understand the potential evolutionary pathways of stars in the orbit of Sagittarius A *. In the Milky Way, there are a large number of binary stars. Studying binary star systems is of great significance for understanding the diversity of the formation and evolution processes of stars and even the Milky Way. People have long speculated that there is also a binary star system near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This time, researchers used archival data from astronomical telescopes to detect a "young" binary star system within the Sagittarius A * star cluster, which may have been born outside the S star cluster and gradually moved inward. The supermassive black hole closest to Earth is an excellent object for studying black hole physics; And everything happening around it also brings new perspectives to our study of planetary evolution. (New Society)