The DOI matches its Crossref record; 25 of the 25 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
A star in a 15.2-year orbit around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way
Open accessAbstract
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-thirds of the orbit of the star currently closest to the compact radio source (and massive black-hole candidate) Sagittarius A*. The observations, which include both pericentre and apocentre passages, show that the star is on a bound, highly elliptical keplerian orbit around Sgr A*, with an orbital period of 15.2 years and a pericentre distance of only 17 light hours. The orbit with the best fit to the observations requires a central point mass of (3.7 +/- 1.5) x 10(6) solar masses (M(*)). The data no longer allow for a central mass composed of a dense cluster of dark stellar objects or a ball of massive, degenerate fermions.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“very similar to the MW black hole, M bh ≈ 4 × 10 6 M ⊙ (Genzel et al. 1996; Schödel et al. 2002; Ghez et al. 2003; EHT Collaboration et al. 2022a).”
From The Fermi/eROSITA bubbles: a look into the nuclear outflow from the Milky Way (2024) · cites this paper as Schödel et al. 2002
In the citing paper
“Our Galaxy is known to contain a supermassive black hole (SMBH) of mass M bh ≈ 4 . 14 × 10 6 M ⊙ at its center, Sgr A ∗ , at a distance of D = 8 . 127 kpc (Genzel et al. 1996; Schödel et al. 2002; Ghez et al. 2003; Genzel et al. 2010; GRAVITY Collaboration et al. 2019; EHT Collaboration et al. 2022a).”
From The Fermi/eROSITA bubbles: a look into the nuclear outflow from the Milky Way (2024) · cites this paper as Schödel et al. 2002
Citations
Cites
Inward Bound: The Search for Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei
Kormendy, J., & Richstone, D. O. (1995) · Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1146/annurev.aa.33.090195.003053 · Cited by 2,516
Ghez, A. M., Klein, B., Morris, M., & Becklin, E. E. (1998) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/306528 · Cited by 770
The Distance to the Center of the Galaxy
Reid, M. J., Schneps, M. H., Moran, J. S., Gwinn, C. R., Genzel, R., Downes, D., & Rönnäng, B. (1987) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-94-009-4782-5_169 · Cited by 712
Self-citationRapid X-ray flaring from the direction of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Centre
Baganoff, F. K., Bautz, M. W., Brandt, W. N., Chartas, G., Feigelson, E. D., GARMIRE, G. P., Maeda, Y., Morris, M., Ricker, G. R., Townsley, L. K., et al. (2001) · Nature · doi:10.1038/35092510 · Cited by 635
The accelerations of stars orbiting the Milky Way's central black hole
Ghez, A. M., Morris, M., Becklin, E. E., Tanner, A. M., & Kremenek, T. (2000) · Nature · doi:10.1038/35030032 · Cited by 457
Observations of stellar proper motions near the Galactic Centre
Eckart, A., & Genzel, R. (1996) · Nature · doi:10.1038/383415a0 · Cited by 433
Self-citationStellar dynamics in the Galactic Centre: proper motions and anisotropy
Genzel, R., Pichon, C., Eckart, A., Gerhard, O., & Ott, T. (2000) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2000.03582.x · Cited by 397
Self-citationOn the nature of the dark mass in the centre of the Milky Way
Genzel, R., Eckart, A., Ott, T., & Eisenhauer, F. (1997) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/291.1.219 · Cited by 352
Self-citationThe Proper Motion of Sagittarius A*. I. First VLBA Results
Reid, M. J., Readhead, A. C. S., Vermeulen, R. C., & Treuhaft, R. N. (1999) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/307855 · Cited by 228
Self-citationDynamical Constraints on Alternatives to Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei
Maoz, E. (1998) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/311194 · Cited by 191
Stellar orbits near Sagittarius A
Eckart, A., Genzel, R., Ott, T., & Schödel, R. (2002) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2002.05237.x · Cited by 183
Self-citationSupermassive boson star at the galactic center?
Torres, D. F., Capozzıello, S., & Lambiase, G. (2000) · Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields · doi:10.1103/physrevd.62.104012 · Cited by 171
Menten, K. M., Reid, M. J., Eckart, A., & Genzel, R. (1997) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/310472 · Cited by 159
Self-citationCONICA: the high-resolution near-infrared camera for the ESO VLT
Lenzen, R., Hofmann, R., Bizenberger, P., & Tusche, A. (1998) · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · doi:10.1117/12.317287 · Cited by 139
Self-citationPeriastron shifts of stellar orbits near the Galactic Center
Rubilar, G., & Eckart, A. (2001) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20010640 · Cited by 128
Self-citationProper Motion of the Compact, Nonthermal Radio Source in the Galactic Center, Sagittarius A*
Backer, D. C., & Sramek, R. A. (1999) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/307857 · Cited by 112
Reid, M. J., Menten, K. M., Genzel, R., Ott, T., Schödel, R., & Eckart, A. (2003) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/368074 · Cited by 84
Self-citationProper Motion of the Compact, Nonthermal Radio Source in the Galactic Center, Sagittarius a*
Backer, D. C. (1999) · CERN Document Server (European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Cited by 74
Dark Matter Concentration in the Galactic Center
Tsiklauri, D., & Viollier, R. D. (1998) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/305753 · Cited by 64
Design of the Nasmyth adaptive optics system (NAOS) of the VLT
Rousset, G., Lacombe, F., Puget, P., Hubin, N., Gendron, E., Conan, J., Kern, P. Y., Madec, P. Y., Rabaud, D., Mouillet, D., et al. (1998) · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · doi:10.1117/12.321686 · Cited by 61
Self-citationA Nonparametric Estimate of the Mass of the Central Black Hole in the Galaxy
Chakrabarty, D., & Saha, P. (2001) · The Astronomical Journal · doi:10.1086/321104 · Cited by 40
Munyaneza, F., & Viollier, R. D. (2002) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/323949 · Cited by 37
NAOS+CONICA at YEPUN: First VLT Adaptive Optics System Sees First Light
Brandner, W., Rousset, G., Lenzen, R., Hubin, N., Lacombe, F., Hofmann, R., Moorwood, A. F. M., Lagrange, A. ‐., Gendron, E., Hartung, M., et al. (2002) · HAL · Cited by 32
Self-citationMunyaneza, F., & Viollier, R. D. (2001) · CERN Document Server (European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Cited by 24
Proper motion of the compact, nonthermal radio source in the galactic center
Backer, D. C., & Sramek, R. A. (1987) · AIP conference proceedings · doi:10.1063/1.36419 · Cited by 22
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Gudehus, D. H. A multiple-star combined solution program — Application to the population II binary µ Cas. Am. Astron. Soc. Meeting 198, 1–13 (2001)
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
Kormendy, J., & Ho, L. C. (2013) · Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-082708-101811 · Cited by 4,421
Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics
Will, C. M. (2018) · doi:10.1017/9781316338612 · Cited by 3,637
Science and technology roadmap for graphene, related two-dimensional crystals, and hybrid systems
Ferrari, A. C., Bonaccorso, F., Fal’ko, V. I., Novoselov, K. S., Roche, S., Bøggild, P., Borini, S., Koppens, F. H. L., Palermo, V., Pugno, N. M., et al. (2014) · Nanoscale · doi:10.1039/c4nr01600a · Cited by 3,065
Quasinormal modes of black holes and black branes
Berti, E., Cardoso, V., & Starinets, A. O. (2009) · Classical and Quantum Gravity · doi:10.1088/0264-9381/26/16/163001 · Cited by 2,095
Ultrasensitive solution-cast quantum dot photodetectors
Konstantatos, G., Howard, I. A., Fischer, A., Hoogland, S., Clifford, J., Klem, E. J. D., Levina, L., & Sargent, E. H. (2006) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature04855 · Cited by 1,886
Metadata
- Authors
- Schödel, R., Ott, T., Genzel, R., Hofmann, R., Lehnert, M., Eckart, A., Mouawad, N., Alexander, T., Reid, M. J., Lenzen, R., Hartung, M., Lacombe, F., Rouan, D., Gendron, E., Rousset, G., Lagrange, A.-M., Brandner, W., Ageorges, N., Lidman, C., Moorwood, A. F. M., Spyromilio, J., Hubin, N., & Menten, K. M.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (DE)
- University of Cologne (DE)
- Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (US)
- Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (DE)
- Observatoire de Paris (FR)
- Office National d'Études et de Recherches Aérospatiales (FR)
- European Southern Observatory (DE)
- Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Schödel, R.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2002-10
- Volume
- 419
- Issue
- 6908
- Pages
- 694-696
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2001876144
- Cited by
- 1,166
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 73 · 2020: 53 · 2019: 121 · 2018: 64 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 38 · 2015: 32 · 2014: 31 · 2013: 28 · 2012: 49
- FWCI
- 46.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (acceptedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- CERN Document Server (European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- European Southern Observatory
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Keywords
- Sgr A*, supermassive black holes, S2 star, stellar orbits, astrometry, Galactic Center, Keplerian orbits, central mass concentration
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
