KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Runaway stars speeding through the galaxy aren’t exactly easy to find, but luckily, they leave some clues that space-based telescopes can catch and beam back to Earth
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have caught sight of “bow shocks” produced by dozens of these runaway stars shooting through the galaxy at supersonic speeds.
“It may be that our Milky Way is, in fact, swarming with these hot runaway stars,” William Chick, a scientist working with the Spitzer and WISE data, said during a presentation here at the 227th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Read more…
