Star’s mysterious orbit around black hole proves einstein was right all along—again.

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The star, known as S2, has a 16-year elliptical orbit. It came near 20 billion kilometers of our black hole, Sagittarius A*, last year. If Isaac Newton’s traditional definition of gravity is correct, S2 should then continue on its previous orbit’s course through space. But it didn’t work.

Instead, it took a slightly divergent route, with the axis of its ellipse altering slightly, according to research published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics by a team employing the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. As predicted by general relativity, the process known as Schwarzschild precession will eventually force S2 to trace out a spirograph-like floral pattern in space (as illustrated above).