Star Flung From Milky Way at High Speed

fenimor writes "Using the MMT Observatory in Tucson, astronomers have discovered a star three times bigger than the sun, leaving our galaxy at a speed of over 1.5 million miles per hour (670 kilometers per second). The first-of-its-kind finding not only confirms an earlier theory about the existence of such speeding stars, but also reinforces the notion that the Milky Way spins around a black hole."

Comments

Inertia & Momentum

[mreed911]

While this seems astounding, leaving some to wonder "how's a star stay together at 1.5MM mph?", it's important to remember that, for all intents and purposes, it's travelling through NOTHING, through a vacuum. As long as its velocity is stable (not running into things to slow it down), there's no inertia to change it's shape, etc.

Is there *really* a difference, physically, on an object moving at 1.5MM mph and one standing completely still, if they're not interacting with anything else? No. Their inertias are the same, so their physical properties and interactions are the same.

Momentum, however, could be a bitch. Imagine this star slamming into another star (or, a la the Death Star, a small planet in the Aldeberan system). Ka-pow, with the graphic like on the old Batman series! Would make Levy-Shoemaker look like a BB gun (you're gonna put your eye out!)...