U.S. astronomers found a neutron star with the speed of 3 million mph (4.8 million kmph) is escaping from the Milky Way, which challenges theories to explain its blistering speed, media reported Thursday.
The cosmic cannonball, a neutron star known as RX J0822-4300, was discovered with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
"Just after it was born, this neutron star got a one-way ticket out of the galaxy," said Robert Petre, an astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Astronomers have seen other stars being flung out of the Milky Way, but few as fast as this."
It has traveled 20 light-years thus far, and will take millions of years to escape the clutches of the Milky Way.
Other hypervelocity stars known to be exiting the Milky Way move at speeds about one-third as great—likely shot toward interstellar space by an aggressive, supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center.
Despite using advanced computer models to simulate how such a stellar rocket could form, astronomers are at a loss of words.
"The problem with discovering this cosmic cannonball is we aren't sure how to make the cannon powerful enough." said Frank Winkler, an astronomer at Middlebury College in Vermont. "The high speed might be explained by an unusually energetic explosion, but the models are complicated and hard to apply to real explosions."
Source: Xinhua/agencies
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