Posted on 04/29/2014 5:20:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Roguish runaway stars can have a big impact on their surroundings as they plunge through the Milky Way galaxy. Their high-speed encounters shock the galaxy, creating arcs, as seen in this newly released image from NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope.
In this case, the speedster star is known as Kappa Cassiopeiae, or HD 2905 to astronomers. It is a massive, hot supergiant moving at around 2.5 million mph relative to its neighbors (1,100 kilometers per second). But what really makes the star stand out in this image is the surrounding, streaky red glow of material in its path. Such structures are called bow shocks, and they can often be seen in front of the fastest, most massive stars in the galaxy.
Bow shocks form where the magnetic fields and wind of particles flowing off a star collide with the diffuse, and usually invisible, gas and dust that fill the space between stars. How these shocks light up tells astronomers about the conditions around the star and in space. Slow-moving stars like our sun have bow shocks that are nearly invisible at all wavelengths of light, but fast stars like Kappa Cassiopeiae create shocks that can be seen by Spitzers infrared detectors.
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificcomputing.com ...
Extra to APoD members. Thanks null and void.
· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe · | ||
Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar · | ||
Lotta mass mov’n fast hauling ass. ;^)
Hypervelocity stars flung out by the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervelocity_star#Hypervelocity_stars
Or moving @ 3.6691% of the speed of light. :-)
Haulin' Ass, Gettin' Paid
Thought this was about Justin Beiber for a minute.
Carry on.
Great post - thanks.
What is the force of the initial explosion. That propelled the star to 2.5 million mph?
Pretty big. :’)
Hey, let’s give JB some respect. The man saved my life. I was in a coma in the hospital for months when the nurse left the radio in my room turned on and Justin Bieber started playing. I got out of the bed and turned the radio off.
“I said Bud Light”.
LOL!
Thank you for the ping, Mr. Civilizations.
Hi, Nully!
Does this star just rampage through the Milky Way eating planets and suns as it goes? How big is too big?
If so, it is literally a death star.
Does it eventually collapse from its own mass and spew itself out in another time, space, or dimension somewhere?
It’s horribly beautiful.
It’ll screw up the orbits of any systems it passes by or through. In our system, we have Uranus — normal moon system but the planet’s axis is tipped almost into the ecliptic — and Neptune — normal axis but screwed up moons.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.