This star has the strangest sky in the galaxy

S301, a star orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, boasts an incredibly unusual sky. This star may seem ordinary compared to the unique location it occupies. It’s much like the sun, only more massive, hotter, and luminous. However, its surroundings make it truly extraordinary.

S301 circles Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole located at the exact center of our galaxy. From this close proximity, the star experiences severely warped time and space. The black hole's immense gravity dominates the region, holding sway over a multitude of objects, including a cluster of extremely luminous stars known as the S-star cluster.

Astronomers have observed that S301's orbit is highly elliptical, bringing it perilously close to the black hole at its perigalacticon, only 1.7 billion kilometers away. This proximity makes S301's sky unlike any other in the galaxy. The shadow of the black hole, visible as a doughnut-shaped ring of material, spans more than a degree across in the star's sky – nearly twice the size of our full moon as seen from Earth.

The combined light from surrounding material is barely detectable, showing only a fuzzy ring through the combined power of radio telescopes spread across our planet.

From S301, the view of the supermassive black hole would be a spectacular and unsettling spectacle. The star's proximity to the black hole results in incredibly high velocities, causing light to become noticeably redshifted and blueshifted due to the relativistic Doppler effect. Additionally, the aberration of light would cause stars on one side of the sky to appear shifted by more than four degrees relative to stars on the opposite side. This would make mapping the sky a formidable challenge.