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Fastest Star in the Galaxy


Airbrush

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There is a star at the center of our galaxy called "S2" that is about 15 solar masses and it whips around the Milky Way's supermassive black hole at a speed of over 3,000 miles per second, at closest approach. Do you know of any hyper velocity star moving faster than that?

 

It will be interesting to know what they can tell us about it's closest approach in mid-2018.

 

"The orbit of S2 will give astronomers an opportunity to test for various effects predicted by general relativity and even extra-dimensional effects.These effects reach their maximum at closest approach, which will next occur in mid-2018. Given a recent estimate of 4.3 million solar masses for the mass of Sagittarius A* and S2's close approach, this makes S2 the fastest known ballistic orbit, reaching speeds exceeding 5000 km/s"

 

https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/S2_(star)

 

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I'm not sure that S2 can be properly labeled a hypervelocity star. This is normally applied to stars that have an exceedingly high velocity compared to the local stellar neighborhood. Sincde s2 is in orbit around Sag A, its velocity is normal for where it is. Hypervelocity stars are thought to originate from the region around the SMB, and were created when one of a pair of binary stars is flung free by a close passage.

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Yes, but hypervelocity stars are only clocked at about 600 miles per second. S2 moves at a maximum of over 3,000 miles per second!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_kinematics#Hypervelocity_stars

 

My next question is are there any other stars in close orbit with our supermassive black hole that are getting whipped around at over 1,000 miles per second?

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