Direct feeding of the black hole at the Galactic Centre with radial gas streams from close‐in stellar winds

We show that the recently discovered orbits of massive stars with closest approach of ∼10 3 Schwarzschild radii from Sgr A* allow winds from these stars to provide the required mass deposition rate near the black hole horizon. The observed luminosity of Sgr A* does not require viscous transport of angular momentum, as long as the total wind mass loss rate reaches ∼10 -6 M ○. yr -1 from the close-in stars. The specific orbits of the nearest stars should cause modulation of the radio and infrared flux from Sgr A* on a time-scale of years in a predictable fashion.