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Star Cluster Ejected From Galaxy At 2,000,000 MPH

Posted by Soulskill on from the get-out-and-stay-out dept.

William Robinson writes: "According to a new report, a globular cluster of several thousand stars (compressed into a space just a few dozen light-years apart) is being thrown out of galaxy M87. The cluster, named HVGC-1, is traveling at a rate of 2 million miles per hour. The discovery was made by Nelson Caldwell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and his team while studying the space around the supergiant elliptical galaxy M87. Caldwell and colleagues think M87 might have two supermassive black holes at its center. The star cluster wandered too close to the pair, which picked off many of the cluster's outer stars while the inner core remained intact. The black holes then acted like a slingshot, flinging the cluster away at a tremendous speed."

8 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Velocity by dtmos · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Two million miles per hour is less than 0.003c, but still quite a clip, even in astronomical terms.

    Since they're discussing velocity (vector speed), and not just speed, the headline is correct in saying " -1000 km/s" when the measured value is -1025 km/s, but one can debate whether the abstract is correct in saying "an extraordinary blueshift of -1025 km/s", rather than "an extraordinary blueshift of 1025 km/s", since "blueshift" gives one the sign of the velocity already.

    1. Re:Velocity by pr0t0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I wonder if the Earth was in orbit around a star that was part of such a cluster, would we notice the effects of such an ejection? Certainly the night sky would change, but the whole process could take of millions of years. Would we feel any immediate effects from the proximity to the black holes? What would our current state of technology, instrumentation and measurement tell us about our relative place and speed? And what, if any change would there be in our civilization's future. Not being in the galaxy seems isolating, but if the host star remains unchanged perhaps there is no change in our destiny. Or perhaps that by the time we developed interstellar travel we'd be too far from the host galaxy to travel to anything other than the stars in our cluster.

      It'd make for a good sci-fi book I think.

      --
      I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
    2. Re:Velocity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Only on Slashdot is a speed of 2*10^^6 MPH
      1) expressed in imperial units
      2) called "pedestrian" by some poster
      Good stuff.

    3. Re:Velocity by skastrik · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Frederik Pohl's The World at the End of Time deals with the ejections of solar systems on a grand scale.

  2. If it's not too much to ask by Arancaytar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Could we please use real scientific units when talking about science?

    How much is this in libraries of congress per fortnight?

    1. Re:If it's not too much to ask by stewsters · · Score: 5, Funny

      Remember that 1 lightyear = 1.03461597 × 1014 American football fields.

  3. Re:They didn't pay the rent? by CanHasDIY · · Score: 5, Funny

    It was an old, run down section of the galaxy.

    So, what are you trying to say? That black holes only live in the galactic ghetto?

    Racist.

    --
    An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  4. Towards Us by Infiniti2000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Virgo Cluster galaxy, M87, has ejected an entire star cluster, throwing it toward us at more than two million miles per hour.

    I can imagine people getting alarmed at this, but they shouldn't. If it's truly directly towards us (unlikely), and never veers off course (unlikely), it would still take about 18.3 million years to reach us.