HE 0437-5439
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HE 0437-5439 is a massive, unbound hyper-velocity main sequence B-type star. It was discovered in 2005 with the Kueyen 8.2 m telescope, which is part of the ESO VLT array. HE 0437-5439 is a young star at around 30 million years old. The mass of the star is eight times greater than the Sun and is 200,000 light years away in the direction of the Dorado constellation, 16 degrees northwest of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and further away than the LMC. The star appears to be receding at an extremely high velocity of 723 km/s, or 2.6 million kilometres per hour. At this speed, the star is no longer gravitationally bound and will leave the Milky Way galaxy system and escape into intergalactic space. It may have originated in the LMC and been ejected from it soon after birth. This could happen if it originally was one of a pair of stars and if there is a supermassive black hole in the LMC.
[edit] External link
- ESO Press Release, 9 November 2005
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