Scientists discover closest ever hypervelocity star to Earth

IN A GALACTIC close call, a potentially devastating hypervelocity star has been discovered whizzing at high speed near the Earth.

Host of stars... A view of part of the Milky Way.

SCIENTISTS have announced the discovery of a hypervelocity star, a rare type of star that is flung at high speeds out of the orbit of the Milky Way.

Only about 20 such stars have ever been found.

Unlike our Sun, which similar to most stars in the Milky Way travels in a predictable orbit around the galaxy’s centre, hypervelocity stars are leaving the galaxy at high speed.

The reason for this is not fully understood but scientists believe it has to do with the powerful gravitational pull at the galaxy’s centre.

Hypervelocity stars appear to be remaining pairs of stars that once orbited each other and got too close to the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way (the galaxy containing Earth).

The pull of gravity from the black hole — equivalent to the mass of 4 million stars like our Sun — captures one star so it orbits the hole closely, and slingshots the other on a trajectory headed beyond the galaxy.

According to the University of Utah, the latest hypervelocity star, known as LAMOST-HVS1, is 42,000 light-years from Earth, making it the closest star of its kind yet discovered.

It is moving at 477 kilometres per second, according to scientists at the Xinglong Observing Station of the National Astronomical Observatories of China near Beijing, where the star was first discovered.