Hyper-Velocity Stars

All we know till now is shooting stars are meteors hitting the atmosphere, right? If you didn't then, congratulations, you just failed the third grade. What many of us don't know is in real, shooting stars exist as well. ASTONISHED? But that's true. They are called Hyper-Velocity stars.

These are big, fiery balls of gas rocketing through space at millions of miles per hour. When a binary star system is gobbled down by the super massive black hole (that’s the scientific term, by the way) at the center of a galaxy, one of the two partners is consumed, while the other is ejected at high speed. Just try to imagine a huge ball of gas, four times the size of our sun, hurtling out from our galaxy at millions of miles per hour.

Artist's View of Hypervelocity Star. Photo Credits: NASA

Six speedy stars rocketing through space at up to 2 million miles per hour were likely ejected from the giant black hole at the Milky Way's heart, astronomers say. They represent the first known "hyper-velocity stars" with masses similar to that of our sun. The discovery, unveiled last month, could shed light on how stars form in the dust-shrouded core of our home galaxy. According to the University of Utah, the latest hyper-velocity star, known as LAMOST-HVS1, is 42,000 light-years from Earth, making it the closest star of its kind yet discovered. It is moving at 477 kilometer per second, according to scientists at the Xinglong Observing Station of the National Astronomical Observatories of China near Beijing, where the star was first discovered.

Hyper-Velocity Star. Photo Credits: NASA

Hyper velocity stars are becoming important in understanding massive black holes and also offer a unique probe to galactic structure. During their lifetime the stars travel across most of the galaxies. By measuring their movement across the sky, it would be possible to refine our knowledge on the shape of the galaxies and about the ways dark matter is distributed. So next time you see a shooting star, it may be a meteor or may be a real hyperactive star........you never know!!!

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