9 votes

Astronomers have spotted an ultrafast star, traveling at a blistering six million km/h, that was ejected by the supermassive black hole at the heart at the Milky Way five million years ago

Posted by spit-evil-olive-tips
Tags: astronomy, milky way, stars, carnegie mellon university, black holes.supermassive, discoveries
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191112110238.htm

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Title
A runaway star ejected from the galactic heart of darkness
Word count
706 words

3 comments

  1. [2]
    asoftbird
    Link
    For perspective: that's about 0.5% of the speed of light. Ignoring its size it would travel the distance earth-sun (1 AU, 1.50 x 10^6 km) in about 25 hours.

    For perspective: that's about 0.5% of the speed of light. Ignoring its size it would travel the distance earth-sun (1 AU, 1.50 x 10^6 km) in about 25 hours.

    3 votes
    1. spit-evil-olive-tips
      Link Parent
      Yeah, it's rather mind-bogglingly fast. For some more perspective: Typical shot from a .50 caliber rifle: ~1 km/sec Fastest humans have traveled around the Earth: X-15, ~2 km/sec Fastest humans...

      Yeah, it's rather mind-bogglingly fast.

      For some more perspective:

      Typical shot from a .50 caliber rifle: ~1 km/sec

      Fastest humans have traveled around the Earth: X-15, ~2 km/sec

      Fastest humans have traveled in space (relative to the Earth): Apollo 10, ~11 km/sec

      Fastest un-crewed space vehicle (relative to the Sun): Parker Solar Probe, ~95 km/sec

      This star: ~1755 km/sec

      It took the Apollo astronauts 3 days to get from the Earth to the Moon. This star covers the same distance in 3 and a half minutes.

      3 votes