According to an article today in New Scientist, “Astronomers have spotted the first star known to be hurtling out of the
Milky Way. And an encounter with the supermassive black hole at the
galaxy’s heart may be the cause of the star’s exodus.”
Speculation that this star has ‘slingshotted’ by a twin and thus is hurtling out in to space is discussed. It’s heading out of our galaxy at 415 miles per second and will be oughta here in 80-100 million years (damn…here’s yet *another* celestial event I’m gonna miss).
When you look at a spiral galaxy like ours, it makes perfect sense that it has to be spinning around some sort of humongous gravitational force — like water going down the drain. A black hole is the logical candidate (read more about interesting black hole theories in one of my earlier posts entitled, “Missing Link: Milkway to the Big Bang“). I guess I’m sort of intrigued that today’s article was the first time I’ve ever seen the words about the center of our Milky Way galaxy being a black hole written down. Maybe I was daydreaming in class that day.
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