Credit: NASA E/PO, Sonoma State University, Aurore Simonnet
It takes a lot to get kicked out of the galaxy – a lot of speed, that is. Scientists from Vanderbilt have identified 16 stars located between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies that appear to have started their lives in the inner part of a galaxy, but now exist outside the galaxy. To blame? A massive black hole.
The stars’ high metallicity indicates the inner-galaxy start. Their positions outside the galaxy indicate that they were drawn by something that could generate the massive speed required to overcome a galaxy’s gravitational pull – and that could be a huge black hole in another galaxy.
For more, read here: Rogue stars ejected from the galaxy found in intergalactic space | Research News @ Vanderbilt | Vanderbilt University.




