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TOPIC: OB Runaway Stars

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Nov 17 21:31 2011

Runaway Stars	Permalink

'Third wheel' stars get cast out at high speeds Most "runaway stars" that are zipping through space may be fleeing the breakup of cosmic threesomes. New simulations show that single stars that try to come between a tight stellar pair are kicked into space at breakneck speeds, explaining the origin of "runaway" stars that have puzzled astronomers for half a century. Most stars in the Milky Way plod around the galaxy at a relatively sedate pace. But some rocket through the galaxy at more than 30 kilometres per second, faster than the Earth orbits the sun. Read more __________________

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Nov 17 04:01 2011

OB Runaway Stars	Permalink

Title: The Origin of OB Runaway Stars Authors: Michiko Fujii, Simon Portegies Zwart About 20% of all massive stars in the Milky Way have unusually high velocities, the origin of which has puzzled astronomers for half a century. We argue that these velocities originate from strong gravitational interactions between single stars and binaries in the centers of star clusters. The ejecting binary forms naturally during the collapse of a young (\aplt 1 Myr) star cluster. This model replicates the key characteristics of OB runaways in our galaxy and it explains the \apgt 100 solar masses, runaway stars around young star clusters, e.g. R136 and Westerlund~2. The high proportion and the distributions in mass and velocity of runaways in the Milky Way is reproduced if the majority of massive stars are born in dense and relatively low-mass (5000-10000 Solar masses) clusters. Read more (206kb, PDF) __________________

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