Starship Asterisk*

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Scientists using the W. M. Keck Observatory and Pan-STARRS1 telescopes on Hawaii have discovered a star that breaks the galactic speed record, traveling with a velocity of about 1,200 kilometers per second or 2.7 million miles per hour. This velocity is so high, the star will escape the gravity of our galaxy. In contrast to the other known unbound stars, the team showed that this compact star was ejected from an extremely tight binary by a thermonuclear supernova explosion. These results will be published in the March 6 issue of Science.

Stars like the Sun are bound to our Galaxy and orbit its center with moderate velocities. Only a few so-called hypervelocity stars are known to travel with velocities so high that they are unbound, meaning they will not orbit the galaxy, but instead will escape its gravity to wander intergalactic space.

A close encounter with the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way is typically presumed the most plausible mechanism for kicking these stars out of the galaxy. ...

• Science 347(6226) 1126 (06 Mar 2015) DOI: 10.1126/science.1259063

BDanielMayfield wrote:Are not ALL Supernovae "thermonuclear"?

Markus Schwarz wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:Are not ALL Supernovae "thermonuclear"?

No. Supernovae of type Ia are, since they result in binary systems where a white dwarf "sucks" material from its companion until its mass is large enough to ignite nuclear fusion again. On the other hand, type II supernovae result from the collapse of massive stars.

Markus Schwarz wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:Are not ALL Supernovae "thermonuclear"?

No. Supernovae of type Ia are, since they result in binary systems where a white dwarf "sucks" material from its companion until its mass is large enough to ignite nuclear fusion again. On the other hand, type II supernovae result from the collapse of massive stars.