Stars Traveling Close To Light Speed Could Spread Life Through the Universe

KentuckyFC writes Stars in the Milky Way typically travel at a few hundred kilometers per second relative to their peers. But in recent years, astronomers have found a dozen or so "hypervelocity stars" traveling at up to 1000 kilometers per second, fast enough to escape our galaxy entirely. And they have observed stars orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy traveling at least an order of magnitude faster than this, albeit while gravitationally bound. Now a pair of astrophysicists have discovered a mechanism that would free these stars, sending them rocketing into intergalactic space at speeds in excess of 100,000 kilometers per second. That's more than a third of the speed of light. They calculate that there should be about 100,000 of these stars in every cubic gigaparsec of space and that the next generation of space telescopes will be sensitive to spot them. That's interesting because these stars will be cosmological messengers that can tell us about the conditions in other parts of the universe when they formed. And because these stars can travel across much of the observable universe throughout their lifetimes, they could also be responsible for spreading life throughout the cosmos.

Comments

Anyone for a game of pool?

[Ded Bob]

The stakes are stellar.

Cubic gigaparsec ...

[Mostly a lurker]

Ummm, how many Olympic sized swimming pools is that?

Re:Cubic gigaparsec ...

[RelaxedTension]

With these kind of huge sizes, I think it's more like a gigabuttload, or as the layman would say, a Kardashian.

pathetic humans

[swell]

" ... they could also be responsible for spreading life throughout the cosmos."

You humans are so self-centered. You think that because you are 'alive' according to your way of thinking, that being alive is ideal. Anything that 'spreads life' is a good thing.

Well, guess what? Some of us who are not so limited in our thinking happen to believe that your idea of life is erroneous. You fail to consider that you are only the poor expression of a nearly perfect DNA molecule. Your purpose is to continue to propagate until we reach absolute perfection, at which time we till kiss your ass goodbye and continue our travels through the universe.