Astronomers have discovered six new "runaway" stars in the Milky Way. These are stars that move extremely fast and in an unusual direction, usually as the result of a supernova event. Two of the stars are among the fastest objects of their kind ever observed in the galaxy, including one that has the highest constant velocity.
The star J0927-6335 is moving at a whopping 2,285 kilometers (1,420 miles) per second. That’s equivalent to traveling from New York to Austin in just over one second. In fact, three of the six are faster than previously observed "hypervelocity" stars – stars that are traveling at speeds that exceed the escape velocity of the galaxy – speeding at over 1,000 kilometers per second, which is about four times faster than the average star in the Milky Way. The second fastest, J1235-3752, is moving at a very respectable 1,694 kilometers (1,053 miles) per second. That’s Chicago to San Antonio in one second.
These runaway stars are moving at incredible speeds but they are not technically the fastest a star can get in our galaxy. Star S0-2 is the fastest known ballistic object in the galaxy. It orbits Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and can reach speeds of 4,000 kilometers per second at the point of closest passage. However, S0-2 doesn't keep that speed all the time, and on average is now in second place between J0927 and J1235.
