Speeding stars confirm bizarre nature of faraway galaxies
Bizarre stars in a distant galaxy move at stunning speeds — greater than 1 million mph, astronomers say. These hyperactive stars move at about twice the speed of our Sun through the Milky Way. The reason? Their host galaxy is very massive, yet strangely compact.
The scene, which has theorists baffled, is 11 billion light-years away. It is the first time motions of individual stars have been measured in a galaxy so distant. While the stars' swiftness is notable, stars in other galaxies have been observed to travel at similarly high speeds. In those situations, it was usually because they were interlopers from outside, or circling close to a black hole. More>>
