The giant missiles roam the universe

The Huble Telescope has captured 14 stars that travel in space at tremendous speeds like giant missiles, creating an arrow-shaped trail of many times the size of the solar system.

The width of light trails can be 170 times the width of the solar system.Photo: NASA.

Arrow-shaped streaks form when strong stellar winds (which include charged particles escaping from the star) collide with dense clumps of gas around. This phenomenon is like launching a speedboat on a water surface.

'We discovered a new star class. They have great brightness and move at extremely high speeds. This discovery surprised us because no one thought of them. When I saw the first picture, I thought it was a rocket flying in space ' , Raghvendra Sahai, an astronomer from NASA said.

The Hubble telescope can help scientists observe the structure and shape of the giant arrow-shaped light trails. Their width can be about 170 times the width of the solar system and travel at speeds of up to 179,000 km / h. 'We think these stars originally resided in large constellations, then they were pushed out of the house,' Raghvendra said.

Hubble Space Telescope.Photo: NASA.

There are two reasons why stars are pushed from their original positions. First, a star in the binary star system exploded and the other star was pushed away by the explosion. Second, the collision between two binary star systems or a binary star system with a third star produces a loud bang. One of the surviving stars absorbs energy from the explosion and escapes the constellation.

Astronomers can only estimate the age, mass and velocity of flying stars. They also rarely detect flying stars because they are extremely rare. 'You cannot predict where they will appear. So all flying stars are discovered by chance. So are the 14 stars that Huble's glasses find, ' astronomer Raghvendra added.