A rare type of runaway star was recently spotted making its way through the Milky Way's neighboring galaxy. Apparently, the discovery in the Small Magellanic Cloud suggests the fact that this process might be a somewhat common occurrence in the universe.
The astronomer that discovered the runaway star is Kathryn Neugent, who is also the author of several books on processes from space and who was the first one to have found a runaway star approximately nine years ago when she was surveying a list of yellow supergiants from the Magellanic Clouds.
The study
The study, which can be found at the Cornell University Library provides several extra observations, all of which suggest that the star is moving speedily through the galaxy and cannot be orbiting another star.
What sets this celestial object aside from others and why is everyone making a fuss about it? The fact is that it is a yellow supergiant that's similar with Polaris. Such stars are rare because they last in this phase for about 10,000 to 100,000 years.
Following this time span, the yellow supergiant balloons into a red supergiant. Because the likelihood of discovering such a star is very slim, Warren Brown from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics says that the event can only suggest that runaway stars are very common.
But how can a star be categorized as being a runaway one? For one, it needs to move considerably faster compared to various other stars in the area where it was born. To escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy, stars have to move somewhat faster than twenty to thirty kilometers per hour. Their speed has nothing in common with their evolution, which is why there can be any number of types of stars running around in a galaxy.
How does a star become a runaway star?
Unfortunately, astronomers do not know the basics of the process just yet. As with anything else involving this field, there is a leading theory, though. It seems that the blast of a supernova from a binary system that the star should be part of pushes it away at great speed. Another way for the process to happen would be for the star to pass others in a cluster, which might propel it in an entirely different direction.
How runaways are hunted
Keeping tabs on runaway stars isn't easy, and the chances of an amateur astronomer doing so are extremely slim. You need some more in the way of equipment to make sure that what you are looking at is actually a runaway star. Reading a buying guide can help if you want to make sure you're getting a good telescope.
Besides, the precise place and time of the departure of the celestial objects will remain unknown even to the best astronomers. You can't make any guesses when it comes to objects in space, even if creating theories might have something in common with reality.
The astronomer that discovered the runaway star is Kathryn Neugent, who is also the author of several books on processes from space and who was the first one to have found a runaway star approximately nine years ago when she was surveying a list of yellow supergiants from the Magellanic Clouds.
The study
The study, which can be found at the Cornell University Library provides several extra observations, all of which suggest that the star is moving speedily through the galaxy and cannot be orbiting another star.
What sets this celestial object aside from others and why is everyone making a fuss about it? The fact is that it is a yellow supergiant that's similar with Polaris. Such stars are rare because they last in this phase for about 10,000 to 100,000 years.
Following this time span, the yellow supergiant balloons into a red supergiant. Because the likelihood of discovering such a star is very slim, Warren Brown from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics says that the event can only suggest that runaway stars are very common.
But how can a star be categorized as being a runaway one? For one, it needs to move considerably faster compared to various other stars in the area where it was born. To escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy, stars have to move somewhat faster than twenty to thirty kilometers per hour. Their speed has nothing in common with their evolution, which is why there can be any number of types of stars running around in a galaxy.
How does a star become a runaway star?
Unfortunately, astronomers do not know the basics of the process just yet. As with anything else involving this field, there is a leading theory, though. It seems that the blast of a supernova from a binary system that the star should be part of pushes it away at great speed. Another way for the process to happen would be for the star to pass others in a cluster, which might propel it in an entirely different direction.
How runaways are hunted
Keeping tabs on runaway stars isn't easy, and the chances of an amateur astronomer doing so are extremely slim. You need some more in the way of equipment to make sure that what you are looking at is actually a runaway star. Reading a buying guide can help if you want to make sure you're getting a good telescope.
Besides, the precise place and time of the departure of the celestial objects will remain unknown even to the best astronomers. You can't make any guesses when it comes to objects in space, even if creating theories might have something in common with reality.
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