| dethalternate | Date: Friday, 20-March-2015, 4:46 PM | Message # 1 |
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| A star discovered by scientists at Queen’s University has broken the galactic speed record - by doing 1,200 kilometres per second.
Experts at the college’s Astrophysics Centre revealed Wednesday that the ‘unbound star’, named US708, is travelling at the fastest speed ever recorded for such an object in our galaxy - meaning it is not held back by gravity and will eventually leave the Milky Way.
They say US708 is believed to have once been part of a double-star solar system, which also included a massive white dwarf star. But the white dwarf is thought to have turned into a ‘thermonuclear supernovae’ and exploded, sending US708 hurtling across space.
The discovery of US708 sheds light on the mysterious double-star systems that give rise to thermonuclear explosions. Thermonuclear, or ‘type Ia’, supernovae have long been used to calculate the distances to faraway galaxies - a measurement which helps to determine how the universe is changing and expanding.
Dr Rubina Kotak and Ken Smith, from the Astrophysics Centre, were part of a team of scientists from countries across the world who made the “ground-breaking discovery” using data gathered by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope on Mount Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Using a range of data gathered over the last 59 years the team were able to determine the full 3-D motion of the star and measure how quickly it is moving across the plane of the sky.
Read more/full article/source - http://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news....8815127
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