An ancient, tiny star is flying out of our galaxy so fast that it must have been slingshotted by the supermassive black hole at the center.
April 24, 2026
Original Paper
An Old, Low-mass, Metal-poor Hypervelocity Star Candidate Consistent with a Galactic Center Origin
arXiv · 2604.21646
The Takeaway
A low-mass, metal-poor star has been caught traveling at speeds high enough to escape the Milky Way entirely. Most hypervelocity stars found previously were young and massive, leading astronomers to believe only certain stars could be ejected this way. This discovery proves that the black hole at the galactic center can kick out old, small stars just as easily. The star's path suggests it was once part of a binary system that got too close to the central abyss. Finding more of these ancient travelers will help map the history of how the heart of our galaxy has been tossing stars into deep space for billions of years.
From the abstract
We report the discovery of DESI-HVS1, a hypervelocity star (HVS) candidate identified from DESI DR1 spectroscopy and Gaia DR3 astrometry. DESI-HVS1 is an old, low-mass, metal-poor F-type star with a mass of $0.8\,M_\odot$, an age of $\sim14.1$~Gyr, and $\mathrm{[Fe/H]}=-1.6$. It is located at a heliocentric distance of $3.77^{+0.39}_{-0.36}$~kpc and has a Galactocentric total velocity of $523^{+46}_{-47}\,\mathrm{km\,s^{-1}}$, marginally exceeding the local escape speed, corresponding to an unbo