Dark Matter May Keep Milky Way’s S-Star Cluster Everlasting

Stars, like everything else in the universe, eventually meet their demise. When stars, regardless of their size, exhaust their nuclear fusion fuel in their cores, they collapse due to gravity, transforming into dense cosmic remnants such as white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes.

However, a recent study has brought forth an intriguing revelation: certain stars within the enigmatic S cluster at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy appear to have discovered a means to endure indefinitely.

Scientists from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University in the United States have conducted simulations revealing that stars can continue to exist by utilizing dark matter as their energy source. These stars, residing near the center of the Milky Way where a significant amount of dark matter is present, achieve a state of eternal youth. Remarkably, the findings from their simulations align with observations of the S cluster stars, suggesting that dark matter indeed serves as the fuel that perpetually sustains them.

The researchers emphasize that the environment at the center of our galaxy is considerably more hostile compared to our own surroundings within the Milky Way. The S cluster, positioned closest to the galactic center, exhibits several distinctive characteristics. The manner in which these stars arrived near the center, an environment generally deemed inhospitable to star formation, remains a puzzle yet to be fully unraveled.