(Red Dots are stars being thrown out by the black hole)
It’s very difficult to kick a star out of the galaxy.
In fact, the primary mechanism that astronomers have come up with
that can give a star the two-million-plus mile-per-hour kick it takes
requires a close encounter with the supermassive black hole at the
galaxy’s core.
So far astronomers have found 16 of these “hypervelocity” stars.
Although they are traveling fast enough to eventually escape the
galaxy’s gravitational grasp, they have been discovered while they are
still inside the galaxy.
Now, Vanderbilt astronomers report in the May issue of the
Astronomical Journal that they have identified a group of more than 675
stars on the outskirts of the Milky Way that they argue are
hypervelocity stars that have been ejected from the galactic core. They
selected these stars based on their location in intergalactic space
between the Milky Way and the nearby Andromeda galaxy and by their
peculiar red coloration.
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