Astronomers have spotted 28 stars that are hurtling through space fast enough to escape the Milky Way's gravitational pull — the biggest set of such stars, and the nearest to Earth, so far identified.
A team led by Jing Zhong of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, China, analysed data on star speeds gathered by the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) in Hebei province. The scientists found 28 stars moving faster than 300 kilometres per second with respect to the galaxy. Some were within 1,000 parsecs of Earth.
High-velocity stars are thought to gain their speed through gravitational interactions with nearby stars or black holes — finding so many of these stars could reveal which mechanisms are most common.
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Speedy stars revealed nearby. Nature 510, 447 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/510447c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/510447c
