This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the hypervelocity star that was kicked out of the center of our Milky Way galaxy with enough energy to escape the galaxy's gravitational grip. Dubbed HE 0437-5439, the stellar speedster may have been a member of a triple-star system and was jettisoned from the galaxy by the monster central black hole.
Galaxies in this image provide a grid of landmarks, which astronomers used to measure the full speed of this stellar outcast over 3 1/2 years. The stellar outcast is rocketing through the Milky Way's distant outskirts at 1.6 million miles an hour, high above the galaxy's disk, about 200,000 light-years from the center. The star is destined to roam the empty depths of intergalactic space.
Based on the speed and position of HE 0437-5439, the star would need 100 million years to have journeyed from the Milky Way's core. Yet its mass – nine times that of our Sun – and blue color mean that it should have burned out after only 20 million years – far shorter than the transit time it took to get to its current location. The most likely explanation for this paradox is that the star is a blue straggler, a pair of smaller and longer-lived stars that merged during flight.
Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys made this observation on July 8, 2006, in near-infrared light.
Credits
NASA, ESA, O. Gnedin (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), and W. Brown (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | HE 0437-5439 |
| Object Description | Hypervelocity Star |
| R.A. Position | 04h 38m 12.0s |
| Dec. Position | -54° 33' 12.0" |
| Constellation | Dorado |
| Distance | The star is ~200,000 light-years from the galactic center. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from proposals and : O. Gnedin (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), A. Gould, J.L. Prieto, and K. Stanek (Ohio State University), J. Anderson, H. Bond, M. Livio, E. Nelan (STScI), and W. Brown, M. Geller, S. Kenyon, and M. Kurtz (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics). |
| Instrument | HST>ACS/WFC |
| Exposure Dates | July 8, 2006 and December 23, 2009, Exposure Time: 56 minutes |
| Filters | F850LP (z) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image was originally black and white and recorded only overall brightness. These brightness values were translated into a range of bluish hues. Such color "maps" can be useful in helping to distinguish subtly varying brightness in an image. |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
