In the central bulge of the Milky Way, about 24,000 light years from the Earth, a peculiar pair of objects seems to be precipitated through the space at dizzying speed.
The evidence suggests that these objects are a high -speed star and its accompanying exoplanet, reports a new study. If that is confirmed, it would establish a new record such as the exoplanet system of faster movement known to science.
The stars are in motion along the Milky Way, typically A few hundred thousand miles per hour. Our solar system average speed Through the Orion of the galaxy, it is 450,000 miles per hour, or 200 kilometers per second.
These two objects are becoming twice as fast, at a speed of at least 1.2 million miles per hour (540 kilometers per second).
“We believe that this is a so -called super neptano world that orbits a low mass star at a distance that would be located between the orbits of Venus and the Earth if it were in our solar system.” says The astronomer Sean Terry from the University of Maryland and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
“If so, it will be the first planet that was found in orbitation of a hypervelocity star.”
The two objects were initially found in 2011, since researchers hunted exoplanets in data from microlent observations in astrophysics (MOA), a project based on the Mount John Observatory of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
The gravitational microlent is a phenomenon that occurs when a massive celestial object is close to the line of vision that runs between a distant observer on one side and a distant star in the other.
Since Mass Warps Spacetime, the light of the star curves as it passes through the space -distorted time of the object on its way to the observer. If the three points align enough, the space of bent space around the middle object acts as a lens for the observer, amplifying the light of the star.
Researchers studying MOA data in 2011 determined the relative mass of objects (one is 2,300 times more massive than the other, but the real mass of both remained without being clear.
“Determining the mass ratio is easy”, says Astronomer David Bennett of the University of Maryland and NASA Goddard, who worked in the 2011 and 2025 studies. “It is much more difficult to calculate his real masses.”
Finding the real mass of an object requires knowing its distance, similar to how to move a magnifying glass closer and distorts the apparent size of the objects without altering the differences between them.
Bennett and his colleagues in 2011 floated two scenarios for the pair of objects: either a star and a planet, with the star a little less massive than our sun and the planet 29 times more massive than the earth, or is a less distant superporter . Jupiter towing a moon smaller than the earth.
For the new study, the researchers sought to discover what these two are and what they are doing more than a decade later, using data from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Gaia satellite of the European Space Agency.
They established approximately 24,000 light years from Earth as the most likely candidate. It is in the brilliant and densely populated of stars of the stars of the Milky Way, the galactic center to our distant suburban hanger.
Based on its distance from the 2011 signal, the team calculated how fast the star is moving, finding its speed is more than double that of our sun.
However, that only explains its two -dimensional movement as seen from Earth. It could also move towards or far from us, which is more difficult to detect from our advantage, but it would mean that it is moving even faster.
That suggests that this star could be quick enough to overcome the escape speed of the Milky Way, which is believed to be 550 to 600 kilometers per second.
If so, then it goes to intergalactic space, although not for millions of years, since the Milky Way is huge and is still almost in the middle.
While this solar system fits the 2011 object profile, only time will say.
“To be sure that the newly identified star is part of the system that caused the 2011 signal, we would like to look again in another year and see if it moves the correct amount and in the right direction,” Bennett says.
If the star remains stationary, then we will know that it is not contributing to the system that causes signal.
“That would mean that the Rogue planet and exomon model is favored,” Explain Astrophysics Aparna Bhattacharya of the University of Maryland and NASA Goddard.
The study was published in The Astronomical Journal.
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