Sometimes where you are expect is not where you are mean to be , especially if you are going to be bright and hotter than anyone else there . untested star cluster R136 is a stellar nursery full of stars but over the last 2 million years it has send out dozens of monolithic asterisk flying into interstellar distance across the Large Magellanic Cloud , a planet galaxy of our own .
Using the European Space Agency’sGaia telescope , research worker were able-bodied to valuate the motions of many monumental stars and by rewinding the clock using computer models , they could influence out that they originated inside this specific clustering .
R136 has lost about one - third of its most massive stars . These objects were thrown out at a hurrying of 100,000 kilometers ( 61,000 miles ) per time of day . Massive champion go through their fuel quickly before finally going supernova , pull up stakes behind a neutron star or a black yap . Some of these objects trip up to 1,000 low-cal - age from the cluster before explode . And that is not all : the team has found evidence that suggest the escape happen not once , but in two episodes .
“ The first episode was 1.8 million years ago , when the bunch formed , and fits with the projection of star during the formation of the cluster . The second episode was only 200,000 year ago and had very different characteristic . For example , the runaway stars of this second episode move more tardily and are not shot aside in random way as in the first episode , but in a preferred direction , ” lead writer Mitchel Stoop , a alumnus research worker at the University of Amsterdam , aver in astatement .
“ We think that the second episode of shooting away stars was due to the interaction of R136 with another nearby cluster ( that was only observe in 2012 ) . The 2d episode may forebode that the two clusters will mix and immix in the near futurity , ” added co - writer Alex de Koter , also at the University of Amsterdam .
R136 is a famous cluster . It has century of thousands of star , including themost massiveknown stars , like BAT99 - 98 , which are figure to be up to 300 time the mass of the Sun . R136 is place in the equally famousTarantula Nebula , a virtuoso - form region that has no equivalence in the Milky Way .
Losing one genius might be a catastrophe , losing 55 expect a lot like carelessness . The dynamical fundamental interaction that exclude some of them were present when the cluster was just forming . This oeuvre is give authoritative insights into how the provenience of stars class and evolves .
“ R136 has only just formed ( 1.8 million years ago ) and so the runaway stars could not yet be so far away that it becomes impossible to distinguish them . If you may find a lot of those stars , you may make honest statistical instruction . This worked out beyond expectations , and we are tremendously pleased with the results . detect something new is always a thrill for a scientist , ” De Koter concluded .
A paper describing the effect is publish in the journalNature .
