Ultrafast Stars Discovered Racing Through Milky Way
Hypervelocity stars zoom around the center of the Milky Way,
where a supermassive black hole lurks. 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
"hypervelocity 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. Black
hole suns The galactic center is cloaked in a halo of dust that
obscures all but the brightest stars from astronomers'
telescopes. But hypervelocity stars could provide a window into
the star formation going on at the Milky Way's dark heart.
[Video: Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole Caught Eating]
That's because hypervelocity stars are thought to form when the
supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy devours one
star in a binary system and ejects its twin, flinging it through