White dwarf breaks galactic speed record by travelling at 1,200 kms per sec

Astronomers have learned that a compact star dubbed US 708 is moving faster than any other star ever observed in the Milky Way galaxy.

Astronomers at Queen's University Belfast stated that the record-setting hypervelocity star has been clocked at 1,200 kms per second. That's so fast that astronomers say it will escape the gravity of Earth's galaxy (in 25 million years).

US708 had been believed to have once been part of a double-star solar system, which also included a massive white dwarf star. The white dwarf is thought to have turned into a "thermonuclear supernovae" and exploded, kicking US708 and sending it hurtling across space.

The discovery of US708 sheds light on the mysterious double-star systems that give rise to thermonuclear explosions. Thermonuclear, or "type Ia," supernovae have long been used to calculate the distances to faraway galaxies, a measurement which helps to determine how the universe was changing and expanding.

Dr Rubina Kotak and Ken Smith, from the Astrophysics Centre at Queen's University, were part of a team of scientists from countries across the world who made the ground-breaking discovery using data gathered by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope on Mount Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

Using a range of data gathered over the last 59 years the team was able to determine the full 3-D motion of the star and measure how quickly it was moving across the plane of the sky.