The fastest stars in the universe can reach the speed of light. The fastest object on earth The fastest object on earth

Who and what is capable of moving the fastest on our planet and beyond? HowStuffWorks journalists have compiled the top 10 fastest things known to man today.

In modern physics it is believed that speed of light in a vacuum is the maximum speed of movement of particles of matter. Light is studied by scientists as electromagnetic waves or as a stream of photons - elementary particles whose rest mass is zero. These particles can only move at the speed of light and cannot be at rest.

Today it is accepted that the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant physical quantity equal to 299,792,458 m/s, or 1,079,252,848.8 km/h. Sunlight takes about 8 minutes 19 seconds to travel 150 million kilometers to reach Earth.

In this material we invite you to familiarize yourself with all the “fastest” that is known to mankind today.

The fastest man on the planet

Jamaican athlete Usain Bolt's record-breaking 100-meter race haunted scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. They decided to create a mathematical model of a runner and find out what allowed the athlete to run a hundred meters in 9.58.

Bolt's height (195 cm) allows him to be considered a tall athlete. On the one hand, this gives an advantage when running, allowing you to take longer steps. On the other hand, the athlete experiences more air resistance. Using data from the International Association of Athletics Federations, whose experts used a laser to measure the athlete's position every 0.1 seconds, scientists calculated that during their record-breaking race, more than 92% of energy expended The bolt spent on overcoming the force of air resistance. Mathematicians compared Bolt's result at the Beijing Olympics (9.69) with the 2009 record. According to their calculations, without a tailwind in Berlin, which was 0.9 meters per second, Bolt would have arrived later, but would still have set a new world record of 9.68 seconds.

The fastest animals

The fastest land animal is cheetah. There is evidence in the scientific literature that these representatives of the cat family can reach maximum speed 105 km/h.

To track the movement of cheetahs in the Botswana savannah, scientists have developed a special collar equipped with a GPS module, gyroscopes and an accelerometer. The device was equipped with solar panels that charged the battery during the daytime. Biologists observed the lives of five cheetahs for 17 months.

The highest speed recorded during the work of zoologists turned out to be less than previously measured in zoos (93 versus 105 kilometers per hour).

Note the stopwatch in the upper left corner of the video player:

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In water

Able to move faster than anyone in water sailboat. This predatory fish lives in the tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans. It can reach speeds of up to 100 km/h. During a series of tests conducted at the Long Key fishing camp (Florida, USA), the sailboat swam 91 meters in 3 seconds ( 109 km/h).

The sailfish creates virtually no friction with the water while moving. This is achieved thanks to a special coating in the form of furrows made of small outgrowths where water is retained. In fact, it is this water that comes into contact with seawater, and not the body of the fish itself. In addition, the body is perfectly streamlined. All this allows the fish to reach such a high speed of movement.

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In the air

Fastest planet

In 2013, using the Kepler space telescope, astronomers managed to discover an exoplanet Kepler-78b. It moves in an orbit 40 times smaller than the orbit of Mercury - the radius of this orbit is only three times the radius of the star itself. Kepler-78b completes an orbit around its star in just 8.5 hours and is a leading contender for the title of fastest known planet.

Scientists consider Kepler-78b a real mystery. " We don't know how it formed or how it got to where it is now. All we know is that she won't last long", says astronomer David Latham. Exoplanet researchers believe that Kepler-78b " will soon fall on a star".

It is worth noting the existence of another candidate for the title of “fastest planet”. This is the planet KOI 1843.03, also discovered using the Kepler telescope. Scientists suggest that a year on this planet lasts only 4.5 hours.

The fastest toilet

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The fastest wind

Researchers from the University of Michigan using the Chandra X-ray space observatory have discovered the fastest "wind" in the Universe, blowing from the disk that surrounds the stellar-mass black hole IGR J17091-3624. Stellar-mass black holes are born from the collapse of very massive stars. Typically, they weigh 5-10 times more than the Sun.

The "wind" moves at a speed of about 32,000,000 km/h(about 3% the speed of light). While studying the black hole IGR J17091-3624, scientists also came to an unexpected conclusion: the wind can carry away more material than the black hole can capture. " Contrary to popular belief that black holes consume all material that approaches them, we estimate that up to 95% of the material in the disk around IGR J17091 is thrown away" said lead researcher Ashley King.

The fastest birth

When British woman Katherine Allen began having regular contractions in 2009, she and her husband began rushing to the hospital. But while Katherine was walking down the stairs, her water broke - and then a 3.8-pound baby girl was born, trapped in the leg of her mother's sweatpants. It was then reported that the birth occurred so quickly that the woman did not feel any pain.

Fastest production car

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When talking about the fastest cars, we can't help but remember the jet car. Thrust S.S.C., equipped with two Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan engines with a capacity of 110 thousand horsepower. On October 15, 1997, at the bottom of a dry lake in Nevada, Andy Green accelerated his Thrust SSC to 1227.985 km/h. For the first time, a land vehicle broke the sound barrier.

Fighter pilot Andy Green later told the story of his record like this: " In front of me was the largest tachometer with a scale from 0 to 1000 miles per hour (0-1600 kilometers per hour). When the engine started working, I realized that keeping a ten-ton monster flying at the speed of a rocket in a straight line is not so easy. My butt was ten centimeters off the ground, and it was a terrible feeling. The car was accelerating like crazy, increasing speed from 320 to 960 kilometers per hour in less than twenty seconds. At around 900 kilometers per hour it got even worse, the car became almost uncontrollable. I remember the terrible howl of air waves forming above the cockpit, I remember the ground rushing beneath me at incredible speed. I covered a kilometer in three seconds. It was the most wonderful adventure of my life".

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The real land speed record belongs to an unmanned vehicle - a rail sled. This is a platform that slides along a special rail track using a rocket engine. It does not have wheels; instead, special slides are used that follow the contour of the rails and prevent the platform from flying off.

On April 30, 2003, at Holloman Air Force Base in the United States, a rail sled accelerated to incredible speeds. 10,430 km/h(!).

Fastest object in the Universe

Active giant elliptical galaxy M87. A relativistic jet bursts out from the center of the galaxy. The second jet may exist, but is not observable from Earth. Image: wikipedia.org

Galaxy M87 is located in the constellation Virgo at the center of a cluster of about two thousand galaxies located 50 million light years away. The black hole at the center of M87 is several billion times more massive than our Sun.

Previously, scientists compiled a video from images taken by the Hubble telescope over 13 years of observations that shows how the black hole in the center of the M87 galaxy ejects a stream of hot gas 5 thousand light years long.

The fastest internet

Last year, a 75-year-old resident of the Swedish city of Karlstad named Sigbritt Lotberg became known to the world as the owner of the world's fastest Internet connection - speed reaches 40 Gbps. This gift was given to the elderly woman by her son Peter, who thus tried to convince Internet providers to invest in the development of high-speed communication channels.

Fastest superhero

Comic book fans may assume that Flash should be the obvious winner. Publisher DC Comics positions its superhero as the fastest man. He is capable of reaching the speed of light. More precisely, a speed 13 trillion times faster than the speed of light. This means that it can travel not only to any point on Earth in a split second, but also to any point in the Universe.

But don't forget about the popular hero of Marvel Comics - the Silver Surfer. He can move in hyperspace, that is, faster than light.

Silver Surfer. Image: Marvel Comics

Humanity has learned to build very powerful and high-speed objects that take decades to assemble in order to then reach the most distant goals. The Shuttle in orbit moves at a speed of more than 27 thousand km per hour. A number of NASA space probes, such as Helios 1, Helios 2 or Vodger 1, are powerful enough to reach the Moon in a few hours.

☛ This article was translated from the English-language resource themysteriousworld.com and, of course, is not entirely true. Many Russian and Soviet launch vehicles and spacecraft overcame the barrier of 11,000 km/h, but in the West, apparently, they got used to not noticing this. And there is quite a bit of freely available information about our space objects; in any case, we were never able to find out about the speed of many Russian spacecraft.

Here is a list of the ten fastest objects produced by mankind:

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Rocket cart

Speed: 10,385 km/h

Rocket carts are actually used to test platforms used to accelerate experimental objects. During testing, the trolley has a record speed of 10,385 km/h. These devices use sliding pads instead of wheels to achieve such lightning-fast speeds. Rocket carts are propelled by rockets.

This external force imparts an initial acceleration to experimental objects. The trolleys also have long, more than 3 km, straight sections of track. The rocket cart tanks are filled with lubricants, such as helium gas, so that this helps the experimental object reach the required speed. These devices are commonly used to accelerate missiles, aircraft parts and aircraft recovery sections.

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NASA X-43A

Speed: 11,200 km/h

The ASA X-43 A is an unmanned supersonic aircraft that is launched from a larger aircraft. In 2005, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized NASA's X-43 A as the fastest aircraft ever made. It has a top speed of 11,265 km/h, which is about 8.4 times faster than the speed of sound.

NASA X-13 A uses drop-launch technology. First this supersonic plane hits a higher altitude on a larger plane and then crashes. The required speed is achieved using a launch vehicle. In the final stage, after reaching the target speed, the NASA X-13 runs on its own engine.

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Shuttle Columbia

Speed: 27,350 km/h

The Columbia shuttle was the first successful reusable spacecraft in the history of space exploration. Since 1981, it has successfully completed 37 missions. The record speed of the space shuttle Columbia is 27,350 km/h. The ship exceeded its normal speed when it crashed on February 1, 2003.

The shuttle typically travels at 27,350 km/h to remain in Earth's lower orbit. At this speed, the spacecraft crew could see the sun rise and set several times in one day.

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Shuttle Discovery

Speed: 28,000 km/h

The shuttle Discovery has a record number of successful missions, more than any other spacecraft. Since 1984, Discovery has made 30 successful flights and its speed record is 28,000 km/h. This is five times faster than the speed of a bullet. Sometimes spacecraft must travel faster than their normal speed of 27,350 km/h. It all depends on the chosen orbit and altitude of the spacecraft.

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Apollo 10 lander

Speed: 39,897 km/h

The Apollo 10 launch was a rehearsal for NASA's mission before landing on the moon. During the return journey, on May 26, 1969, the Apollo 10 apparatus acquired a lightning speed of 39,897 km/h. The Guinness Book of World Records has set the Apollo 10 lander's speed record as the fastest manned vehicle speed record.

In fact, the Apollo 10 module needed such speed to reach the Earth's atmosphere from lunar orbit. Apollo 10 also completed its mission in 56 hours.

Our universe is so huge that it is extremely difficult to comprehend its entire essence. We can try to mentally embrace its vast expanses, but each time our consciousness flounders only on the surface. Today we decided to present some intriguing facts that are likely to raise eyebrows.

When we look at the night sky we see the past

The very first fact presented can amaze the imagination. When we look at the stars in the night sky, we see the light of stars from the past, a glow that travels through space for many tens and even hundreds of light years before reaching the human eye. In other words, every time a person glances at the starry sky, he sees how the stars once looked before. Thus, the brightest star Vega is located at a distance of 25 light years from Earth. And the light that we saw tonight, this star left 25 years ago.

In the constellation Orion there is a remarkable star called Betelgeuse. It is located 640 light years from our planet. Therefore, if we look at it tonight, we will see the light left during the Hundred Years' War between England and France. However, other stars are even further away, therefore, looking at them, we come into contact with an even deeper past.

The Hubble telescope allows you to look back billions of years ago

Science is constantly evolving, and now humanity has a unique opportunity to examine very distant objects in the Universe. And it's all thanks to NASA's remarkable engineering of the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field Telescope. It is thanks to this that NASA laboratories were able to create some incredible images. Thus, using images from this telescope between 2003 and 2004, a tiny patch of sky containing 10,000 objects was imaged.

Incredibly, most of the objects displayed are young galaxies, acting as a portal to the past. Looking at the resulting image, people are transported 13 billion years ago, which is only 400-800 million years after the Big Bang. From a scientific point of view, it was he who laid the beginning of our Universe.

Echoes of the Big Bang penetrate an old TV

In order to catch the cosmic echo that exists in the Universe, we will need to turn on an old tube TV. At that moment, while we have not yet configured the channels, we will see black and white interference and characteristic noise, clicks or crackles. Know that 1% of this interference consists of cosmic background radiation, the afterglow of the Big Bang.

Sagittarius B2 is a giant cloud of alcohol

Near the center of the Milky Way, 20,000 light-years from Earth, there is a molecular cloud consisting of gas and dust. The giant cloud contains 10 to the 9th power of billion liters of vinyl alcohol. By discovering these important organic molecules, scientists have some clues about the first building blocks of life, as well as their derivative substances.

There is a diamond planet

Astronomers have discovered the largest diamond planet in our galaxy. This massive block of crystalline diamond is named Lucy, after the Beatles song of the same name about heaven with diamonds. Planet Lucy was discovered 50 light years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. The giant diamond is 25,000 miles in diameter, much larger than the Earth. The planet's weight is estimated at 10 billion trillion carats.

The path of the sun around the Milky Way

The Earth, as well as other objects in the solar system, revolve around the Sun, while our star, in turn, orbits the Milky Way. It takes the Sun 225 million years to complete one revolution. Did you know that the last time our star was in its current position in the galaxy, when the collapse of the super continent Pangea began on Earth, and dinosaurs began their development.

The largest mountain in the solar system

There is a mountain on Mars called Olympus, which is a giant shield volcano (similar to the volcanoes found on the Hawaiian Islands). The height of the object is 26 kilometers, and its diameter extends over 600 kilometers. By comparison, Everest, Earth's largest peak, is three times smaller than its Mars counterpart.

Rotation of Uranus

Did you know that Uranus rotates relative to the Sun almost “lying on its side”, unlike most other planets, which have a smaller axis deviation? This gigantic deviation results in very long seasons, with each pole receiving approximately 42 years of uninterrupted sunlight in the summer and a similar time of perpetual darkness in the winter. The last time the summer solstice was observed on Uranus was in 1944, the winter solstice is expected only in 2028.

Features of Venus

Venus is the slowest rotating planet in the solar system. It rotates so slowly that a full rotation takes longer than an orbit. This means that a day on Venus actually lasts longer than its year. This planet is also home to constant electron storms with high CO2 levels. Venus is also shrouded in clouds of sulfuric acid.

The fastest objects in the Universe

It is believed that neutron stars rotate the fastest in the Universe. A pulsar is a special type of neutron star that emits a pulse of light whose speed allows astronomers to measure its rotation rate. The fastest rotation recorded is that of a pulsar, which rotates at more than 70,000 kilometers per second.

How much does a spoonful of a neutron star weigh?

Along with their incredibly high rotation speeds, neutron stars have an increased density of their particles. So, according to experts, if we could collect one tablespoon of the substance concentrated in the center of a neutron star, and then weigh it, the resulting mass would be approximately one billion tons.

Is there life beyond our planet?

Scientists do not give up attempts to identify an intelligent civilization in any place in the Universe other than Earth. For these purposes, a special project called “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” has been developed. The project includes the study of the most promising planets and satellites, such as Io (a moon of Jupiter). There are indications that evidence of primitive life may be found there.

Scientists are also considering the theory that life on Earth could have occurred more than once. If this is proven, then the prospects for other objects in the Universe will be more than intriguing.

There are 400 billion stars in our galaxy

Undoubtedly, the Sun is of great importance to us. This is the source of life, the source of heat and light, the source of energy. But it is just one of many stars that inhabit our galaxy, which is centered on the Milky Way. According to recent estimates, there are more than 400 billion stars in our galaxy.

Scientists are also looking for intelligent life among the 500 million planets orbiting other stars with similar distances from the Sun to Earth. The basis for the research is not only the distance from the star, but also temperature indicators, the presence of water, ice or gas, the right combination of chemical compounds and other forms that can build life, the same as on Earth.

Conclusion

So, in the entire galaxy there are 500 million planets where life could potentially exist. So far, this hypothesis does not have concrete evidence and is based only on assumptions, however, it also cannot be refuted.

Although humanity has certainly reached impressive heights, we are still small fish compared to the scale of the Universe. Space objects can easily beat out the “best stuff” in any category.

Einstein's general theory of relativity hides several statements behind it. Among these hidden implications is the fact that light does not always travel in a straight line. The very space in which light travels curves around any object that has mass. The more massive the object, the more space bends. This means that when light passes by a star, for example, it will bend towards the star and change direction. The result is an effect known as Einstein rings. If a cosmic body emits light in all directions while behind a massive object, all the light will bend towards the massive object and an illusion of a ring will form for an observer on the other side of the body.

The largest cosmic lens in the history of observation has the memorable name MACS J0717.5+3745. It is the largest galaxy cluster, described as a "cosmic deathmatch", located 5.4 billion light years from Earth. This lens effect is useful in studying objects in the universe that have mass but do not emit energy. We just need to find the lens effect in areas where there is no ordinary matter to explain the effect. Scientists were able to use the Einstein rings in J0717.5+3745 to identify clusters of dark matter, and created an image where the extra mass is indicated by an additional color.

9. The Most Powerful X-Ray Burst


The most powerful X-ray burst was seen by NASA's Swift telescope in June 2010. The flare, which occurred five billion light years away, was powerful enough to cause the satellite to receive so much data that its software simply failed. One of the scientists working on the project described what happened: “it’s like trying to measure the power of a tsunami with a bucket and a rain gauge.”
The flash was 14 times more powerful than the strongest post
There is no known source of X-rays in the sky, but that source is a neutron star located 500,000 closer to Earth. The cause of the powerful flare was the fall of a star into a black hole, although scientists did not expect that such a strong emission of radiation could occur in such a scenario. The interesting thing is that although X-ray radiation was off the charts, the level of other types of radiation was within normal limits.

8. The most powerful magnet


The title of the strongest magnet in space belongs to the neutron star SGR 0418+5729, discovered by the European Space Agency in 2009. Scientists took a new approach to processing X-rays that allowed them to probe the magnetic field beneath the star's surface. ESA themselves described their discovery as a “magnetic monster.”

Magnetars are quite small - only 20 kilometers in diameter. The size of one of them could even be placed on the moon. But it would be better not to do this - even from such a distance the magnetic field would be so powerful that trains on Earth would stop. Fortunately, this magnetar is located 6,500 light years away.

7. Megamasers


The laser has brought us many benefits over the past few decades, so it should not be surprising that it has received all the excellent reputation. Its cousin, a little further down the spectrum, is called a maser, but is essentially the same thing, except that light is replaced by microwaves. The most powerful laser made by human hands, by comparison, reached 500 trillion watts. The Universe considers this to be some kind of dim candle, because in space there are masers with a power of non-nillion watts. In the numbers you've heard, it's a million trillion trillion - 10,000 times the power of our Sun.

The maser comes from quasars, which are large disks of matter colliding with the massive central black holes of distant galaxies. Oddly enough, the source of the most powerful masers is water. Water molecules in a quasar collide with each other, emitting microwaves and causing their neighbors to do the same. This chain reaction amplifies the signal, helping it reach the state of a maser that we can see. The quasar maser MG J0414+0534 was detected in 2008 and provided evidence of the existence of water 11.1 billion light-years away.

6. The oldest objects in the entire history of observation


The age of the Universe is 6,000 years, give or take 13.7 billion years. The oldest object whose age we can directly estimate is HE 1523-0901, a star in our galaxy. Measuring the age of a star is done using radioisotope analysis, in much the same way that is used to measure the age of human artifacts. Only elements with long half-lives, such as uranium or thorium, can exist for such a long period of time. A study conducted by the European Southern Observatory used six methods to estimate the star's age, confirming that the star is 13.2 billion years old.

There are other objects whose age we cannot measure accurately, but only guess. Some of them are believed to be even older. HD 140283, also known informally as the Methuselah star, is a star that has long puzzled scientists. An initial estimate of its age showed that the star is older than the Universe itself. More precise measurements made by the Hubble telescope have lowered the number from 16 billion years to about 14.5 billion - an age that is roughly the same as the age of the universe.

5. The fastest spinning objects


Scientists recently created the world's fastest-spinning object, spinning at 600 million revolutions per second. This is impressive, but the object was only 4 millionths of a meter wide, so its surface was moving at a speed of 7,500 meters per second. At first glance, this is fast (not at first glance either), but this is nothing compared to what space is ready to show us.

VFTS 102 is the fastest-rotating star discovered by humans, and its surface moves at a speed of 440,000 meters per second. It is located 160,000 light years away in a nebula with the cool name “Tarantula”, in one of our neighboring galaxies. Astronomers believe the star was part of a binary star, but its companion went supernova, giving the surviving VFTS 102 a strong spin.

4. Record-breaking galaxies


Unless you got your physics knowledge from Will Smith movies, you know that all galaxies are pretty big. Our Milky Way, for example, is 100,000 light years across. IC 1101, the largest galaxy discovered, could contain 50 Milky Ways. It was first noticed by William Herschel in 1790, and we now know that it is located a billion light years away. This is a huge distance, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the record holder for the longest distance from us.

The most distant galaxy discovered is z8_GND_5296, located 30 billion light years from Earth. The galaxy was formed 700 million years after the formation of the Universe itself (in fact, the galaxy that we see at the moment is its distant past). This galaxy is also notable for its high rate of star formation, which is 100 times greater than that of the Milky Way. The next generation of space telescopes will allow us to look even further into the past - and look at some of the very first stars to form in the Universe.

3. The coldest star


There are many words that can be used to describe a star - hot, big, bright, very hot, very large, and so on. And yet the stars do not always live up to our expectations. The coolest class of star, brown dwarfs, are actually quite cold. WISE 1828+2650 is a brown dwarf in the constellation Lyra, whose surface temperature is 25 degrees Celsius, which is 10 degrees lower than that of a person with hypothermia. It is often called a “failed star” because it did not have enough mass to “ignite” when it formed.

Such dim stars cannot be found in visible light. The WISE part of the star's name comes from Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. NASA is using WISE to detect brown dwarfs and study their formation, which can only be seen in infrared light. Since WISE's launch in December 2009, the instrument has discovered more than 100 brown dwarfs.

2. The fastest meteorite


If you happened to be in California on April 22, 2012, you may have witnessed the fall of an amazing meteorite that ended its journey in the area of ​​the former Sutter's Mill. Seeing a meteorite fall is always cool, but the fireball that flew over the Sierra Nevada that day was special - the fastest meteorite ever. It moved at a speed of 103 thousand kilometers per hour, twice the speed of our fastest rocket.

Scientists collected information from several sources, including weather radar, videos and photographs of the meteorite. This allowed them to triangulate its trajectory and know not only its speed, but also its starting point. They were even able to calculate its orbit. Before it crashed into the Earth, the meteorite flew to Jupiter. The gas planet most likely “shot” it at us.

The meteorite was interesting for other reasons. It consisted of Carboniferous chondrite, a fairly rare substance. Meteorites with chondritic structure are called "time capsules" because they have changed little since their formation in the early solar system, 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists can usually follow objects in the sky without knowing what they are made of, or study a meteorite in a laboratory without knowing where it came from. A geologist from Australia's Curtin University says such complete information is "very helpful in studying the meteorite."

1. Fastest orbits


Binary star systems - where two stars orbit a common center of mass - are quite common. Some of them even have planets, and there is also a system in which six stars move in a common orbit. However, some of them move very, very fast.

The fastest movement of two ordinary stars around each other is observed in a system called HM Cancri. These two white dwarfs - the dead remnants of stars similar to our Sun - are three Earths apart. They move through space at a speed of 1.8 million kilometers per hour, splashing hot matter at each other and releasing large amounts of energy. It takes them only six minutes to complete the entire orbit.

More unusual couples have been discovered, moving even faster. Scientists have discovered a black hole called MAXI J1659-152, which forms a pair system with a red dwarf star just 20% the size of the Sun. The black hole moves in orbit relatively slowly, only 150,000 kilometers per hour. His partner, however, flies at a speed of 2 million kilometers per hour. The red dwarf is located further from the common center of gravity (otherwise they would have already collided), but is constantly losing its matter and will eventually disappear completely.

The current speed record for binary stars is held by a dying star orbiting with a super-dense neutron star. The neutron star is, of course, slower, but has the fantastic name “black widow pulsar” (a less interesting name sounds like PSR J1311-3430). Its speed of 13 thousand kilometers per hour is quite low - the Earth moves around the Sun eight times faster. The pulsar's companion, however, moves as fast as two, accelerating to 2.8 million kilometers per hour.

The name "black widow" was given to the pulsar because of the behavior of female black widows, who eat the male after mating. The pulsar releases so much radiation into the dying star that it literally vaporizes it. Over time, the neutron star will completely destroy its partner. So, although the system of double stars from HM Cancri ranks only third in terms of the speed of its movement, we are forced to admit that their relationship is the “healthiest”.

Our Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way at a speed of 724,000 kilometers per hour. Recently, scientists have discovered stars that are rushing out of our galaxy at speeds of more than 1,500,000 km/h. Can a star move even faster?

After doing some calculations, Harvard University astrophysicists Avi Loeb and James Guilshon realized that, yes, stars can move faster. Much faster. According to their analysis, stars can reach the speed of light. The results are purely theoretical, so no one knows whether this could happen until astronomers capture these hypervelocity stars - which Loeb says will be possible with the next generation of telescopes.

But speed isn't all that astronomers will get after detection. If such superfast stars are found, they will help understand the evolution of the Universe. In particular, to give scientists another tool to measure the rate of expansion of space. In addition, Loeb says, under certain conditions, such stars may also have planets in their orbit, traveling through galaxies. And if there is life on such planets, they could transfer it from one galaxy to another. Agree, interesting reasoning.

It all started in 2005, when a star was discovered that was hurtling away from our galaxy so fast that it could escape the Milky Way's gravitational field. Over the following years, astronomers were able to discover several more stars, which became known as hypervelocity stars. These stars were ejected by the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. When a pair of such stars orbiting each other comes close to the central black hole, which weighs millions of times more than the Sun, the three objects engage in a brief gravitational dance that results in one star being ejected. The other remains in orbit around the black hole.

Loeb and Guilshon realized that if instead you had two supermassive black holes on the verge of colliding and a star orbiting one black hole, gravitational interactions could catapult the star into intergalactic space at speeds hundreds of times faster than hypervelocity stars. The analysis was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

According to Loeb, this is the most likely scenario in which the fastest stars in the Universe could appear. After all, supermassive black holes collide more often than you think. Almost all galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers, and almost all galaxies are the result of the merger of two smaller galaxies. When galaxies merge, so do the central black holes.

Loeb and Guilshon calculated that a supermassive black hole merger would eject stars at a wide range of velocities. Few of them would reach near-light speed, but the rest would accelerate quite seriously. For example, Loeb says, there may be more than a trillion stars in the observable Universe that move at 1/10 the speed of light, or about 107,000,000 kilometers per hour.

Because the motion of a single isolated star through intergalactic space will be quite dim, only powerful future telescopes like the one scheduled for launch in 2018 will be able to detect them. And even then, most likely, such telescopes will only be able to see stars that have reached our galactic environs. Most ejected stars likely formed near the centers of galaxies and were ejected shortly after their birth. This means that they travel for most of their life time. In this case, the age of the star will be approximately equal to the time that the star travels. By combining travel time with measured speed, astronomers can determine the distance from a star's home galaxy to our galactic neighborhood.

If astronomers can find stars that were ejected from the same galaxy at different times, they can use them to measure the distance to that galaxy at different points in the past. By looking at how this distance has changed over time, it will be possible to determine how quickly the Universe is expanding.

Two merging galaxies

Ultrafast wandering stars may have other uses. When supermassive black holes collide with one another, they create ripples in space and time that display intimate details of the black hole merger. The eLISA space telescope, scheduled for launch in 2028, will detect gravitational waves. Since superfast stars form when black holes are about to merge, they will act as a kind of signal that will point eLISA to possible sources of gravitational waves.

The existence of such stars would be one of the clearest signals that two supermassive black holes are on the verge of merging, says astrophysicist Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Although they may be difficult to detect, they will represent a fundamentally new tool for studying the Universe.

In 4 billion years, our galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy. The two supermassive black holes at their centers will merge, and the stars may also be ejected. Our Sun is too far from the center of galaxies to be ejected, but another star may hold habitable planets. And if people still exist by then, they could potentially land on this planet and go to another galaxy. Although, of course, this prospect is more distant than any other.