A Supernova Flung This Star At 2 Million Miles Per Hour — Where Its Headed

A Supernova Flung This Star At 2 Million Miles Per Hour — Where It’s Headed

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Stars often look like peaceful beacons of light in the night sky. Sometimes, however, they turn into raging bullets trying to escape our Solar System.

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A Supernova Flung This Star At 2 Million Miles Per Hour — Where Its Headed

Right now, somewhere in space, a star is being flung around at millions of miles per hour towards the edge of the Milky Way — our home Solar System. While life on Earth can sometimes feel monotonous and boring, fascinating discoveries are constantly being made on neighboring planets, moons, and the outer space in between. In the past few days alone, scientists have discovered new explanations for water on the moon, strange galaxies playing tug-of-war with each other, and mysterious worm-like rocks on Mars.

Sometimes all of that activity in space can result in stunning views from right here on Earth. This month, for example, the Perseids meteor shower will result in up to 100 meteors per hour soaring through the night sky. About a week ago, Texas residents could look up and see a bright fireball exploding with light and sonic booms. Whether it be intense sightings like that or just getting a good view of a constellation, anyone can look up and appreciate the wonders of the Solar System from their front porch.

People who look further than that can see even wilder things, such as the star mentioned at the beginning of the article. In a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters (and reported on by The Brink from Boston University), lead researcher JJ Hermes outlines the star LP 40-365. It’s currently 2,000 light-years away from Earth and soaring through space at around two million miles per hour. Hermes concludes LP 40-365 is shrapnel from a white dwarf star that was ripped apart during a supernova — causing it to pick up an enormous amount of speed. Commenting on LP 40-365, former Boston University student Odelia Putterman (who worked with Hermes on the study) says, “To have gone through partial detonation and still survive is very cool and unique, and it’s only in the last few years that we’ve started to think this kind of star could exist.”

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The Star Is So Fast It’s Trying To Leave The Milky Way

LP 40-365 is moving so fast that Hermes believes it’s on track to leave the Milky Way. As if that wasn’t interesting enough, the star has another unique characteristic to it. Studying light data from NASA’s Hubble telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, Hermes and team realized that the star is also rotating. As Hermes puts it, “We dug a little deeper to figure out why that star [was repeatedly] getting brighter and fainter, and the simplest explanation is that we’re seeing something at [its] surface rotate in and out of view every nine hours.” A full rotation every nine hours is faster than the 27-day rotation the Sun takes to complete, but considering LP 40-365 is the result of a supernova, that’s actually considered slow.

With that data in mind, it’s assumed that this particular star is the remains of another, larger star that self-destructed at one point. That star was likely given too much mass by a neighboring one while orbiting each other at high speed. They got too fast, too close, and were slingshotted away from one another. As Hermes best describes it, “These are very weird stars.” They’re some of the fastest known to man, are incredibly rich with metal, and can result in striking discoveries like this one. And, yes, they are very weird indeed.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/supernova-star-leaving-milky-way-study/

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