Stars orbiting Milky Way's black hole
Stars S0-2 (lighter circle) and S0-102 (in red) orbit the enormous black hole at the center of our galaxy in less time than it takes for a human to be eligible for a California driver’s license. In this image, the Keck II Telescope is on the left and the Keck I Telescope is on the right. Each telescope has an adaptive optics systems that uses a laser to correct the distorting effects of the Earth’s atmosphere in real time. The lasers are pointing to the center of the Milky Way.
Background photo credit: Dan Birchall/Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Overlay created by Professor Andrea Ghez and her research team at UCLA and are from data sets obtained with the W. M. Keck Telescopes.