A team of astronomers led by Stephan Geier from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching (Germany) has discovered a star that moves at an unparalleled speed: about 1,200 kilometers per second , a speed so high that it has broken the record of speed in our galaxy. The finding has been published in the journal Science .
The researchers captured this fast-moving star with the 10-meter Keck II telescope in Hawaii; By combining the data from this telescope with those from the Pan-STARRS1 observatory, they were able to trace the tangential component of the star's speed, determining that it was moving at about 1,200 kilometers per second, a much higher speed than was known. in other stars observed in our Milky Way (the average is a few hundred kilometers per second).
"At that speed, one could travel from the Earth to the Moon in five minutes, " explains Eugene Magnier, a co-author of the study.
The reason for this super speed is because the star was ejected from its system by the explosion of a thermonuclear supernova and, because it will escape the gravity of the galaxy and, therefore, will not orbit around it, it will walk through the unobstructed intergalactic space .
According to astronomers' data, this gas sphere named US 708 is nothing more than a compact, fast-rotating helium star that was likely formed by interaction with a nearby companion. After the thermonuclear explosion it was violently ejected, beginning its space journey at extreme speed.
