Be sure to check out the Dynaverse.Net Repository, the most comprehensive SFC library around !! ftp.dynaverse.net
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Having lost its companion in a close brush our Milky Way's supermassive black hole, a fast-moving star appears to have had enough. It's fleeing the galaxy.Moving at more than 1.5 million mph (670 kilometers per second), the speedy star's path has been traced back to the galactic center. Here's what astronomers think happened:The star was once part of a two-star system. Like all stars in the Milky Way, the pair orbited the center of the galaxy. But they got precariously close to the central black hole, which has a mass of more than 3 million Suns. The gravitational interaction shot the star outward like a rock from a slingshot. The companion was stripped away and lured into a tight orbit around the center of the galaxy."We have never before seen a star moving fast enough to completely escape the confines of our galaxy," said Warren Brown of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "Only the powerful gravity of a very massive black hole could propel a star with enough force to exit our galaxy."