A new study revealed that the Milky Way's fastest spinning star is already on its way out of the galaxy, and suggests a supernova caused the star to be ejected.

The star called US 708 is moving at an incredible speed of 26 million miles per hour, making it the fastest star astronomers have observed. At this speed, the out of control star will escape the Milky Way's powerful gravitational forces and make its way towards intergalactic space.

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Researchers say these hypervelocity stars (HVS') usually speed out of the galaxy when the massive forces from the black hole located at the center of the galaxy throw them off course. The origin of US 708 is quite different from the rest of the HVS', however.

The fast traveling star was probably launched by a Type Ia supernova, the source of the universe's brightest and most powerful bursts of energy. Scientists are still studying how these exploding stars work and hope US 708 can provide clues.

Scientists believe US 708 was most likely in an orbit with another host star, and the two stars began orbiting each other too fast because of the very small distance between them.

The companion star exploded into a supernova and was destroyed completely. The lone US 708 was now without a gravitational leash that would have kept it in place as that enormous energy and rotational speed resulted in a fast moving one directional path.

This fast star is classified by astronomers as a hot subdwarf, which was first discovered in 2005. Using the Keck II telescope's Echellette Spectrograph and Imager instrument, astronomers measured the star's distance and velocity.

According to Stephan Geier of the European Southern Observatory during the reconstruction of its trajectory, the galactic center became an unlikely source of its origin but this is highly inconsistent with the most favorable ejection mechanism found in other HVS'.

He adds the team concluded from their binary star evolution model that US 708 was indeed spun up by a tidal interaction caused by a close binary star, and most likely ejected as a remnant from a very powerful, thermonuclear supernova.

This study was published in the journal, Science.

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