Runaway Planets Zoom at a Fraction of Light Speed!

Planet Starship: Runaway Planets Zoom at a Fraction of Light-Speed

It would seem that runaway stars shooting along at speeds reaching 1.5 millions miles per hour are not the only objects flying out of our galaxy.

Ever since several years ago when astronomers first observed these aptly named 'hypervelocity stars' they intriguingly wondered if the same could happen to planets,They have now found that answer and it is yes.

New research shows that the answer is yes. Not only do runaway planets exist, but some of them zoom through space at a few percent of the speed of light - up to 30 million miles per hour.

"These warp-speed planets would be some of the fastest objects in our Galaxy. If you lived on one of them, you'd be in for a wild ride from the center of the galaxy to the Universe at large," said astrophysicist Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

These 'hyper-velocity planets' originate in the same way as known hyper-velocity stars do,As they go on to explain here-

Such speedy worlds, called hypervelocity planets, are produced in the same way as hypervelocity stars. A double-star system wanders too close to the supermassive black hole at the galactic center. Strong gravitational forces rip the stars from each other, sending one away at high speed while the other is captured into orbit around the black hole.

For this study, the researchers simulated what would happen if each star had a planet or two orbiting nearby. They found that the star ejected outward could carry its planets along for the ride. The second star, as it's captured by the black hole, could have its planets torn away and flung into the icy blackness of interstellar space at tremendous speeds.

(Emphasis added by me)

Source

Hypervelocity stars:

Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) are stars with a velocity so great that they are able to escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy.[8] Ordinary stars in the galaxy have velocities on the order of 100 km/s, while hypervelocity stars (especially those near the center of the galaxy, which is where most are thought to be produced), have velocities on the order of 1000 km/s.

The existence of HVSs was first predicted in 1988, [9] and their existence confirmed in 2005. [10] Currently, sixteen are known, one of which is believed to originate from the Large Magellanic Cloud rather than the Milky Way.[11] All of the currently known HVSs are over 50,000 parsecs away and are unbound from the galaxy.

It is believed that about 1000 HVSs exist in our Galaxy. Considering that there are around 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, this is a minuscule fraction (~0.000001%)

Stellar kinematics-Hypervelocity stars

Additional information -
Hubble Spots Hypervelocity Star Speeding From the Milky Way's Center at 1.6 Million MPH

NASA'S Hubble Shows Hyperfast Star Was Booted From Milky Way

Hyperfast Star Was Booted from Milky Way

I think this is incredible,To think where these stars and now planets are headed and at such great speeds...It does boggle the mind..It truly does.

We have been discovering so many intriguing new aspects,attributes and wonders of our solar system and universe...I am curious what we will find next...

I know I will be waiting with baited breath and letting my imagination run wild to the infinite possibilities and potential this existence and all that it entails holds for us to see,feel,hear and experience.

The cosmos still holds many mysteries to be discovered,experienced and understood.

I look forward to everyone's thoughts on this and I hope you found the article as interesting as I did as well.

Great post. Those speeds are intense i couldn't even imagine.

Wow!

Can you imagine a race of people that could fly their planet to ours?


I know thats not what they are talking about here.


But if you could fly a planet?

Thank you for sharing. I wish to emphasize at this extremely early stage of the thread, none of these planets has ever actually been observed; these conclusions are the result of mathematical modelling. No life as we conceive of it could have survived such an encounter with a black hole. Scientists have not, repeat not confirmed the existence of Nibiru. (And it's sad that I feel the need to explain this.)

Wow I learn something new everyday, thank you for posting this information. I wonder how long it would take one of these HVPs or HVS to decelerate, and what kind of power it would unleash if it collided with another celestial body?

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, oh **** it's a runaway planet!

On a serious note, I find this incredibly awesome.

Originally posted by mileysubet
Wow I learn something new everyday, thank you for posting this information. I wonder how long it would take one of these HVPs or HVS to decelerate, and what kind of power it would unleash if it collided with another celestial body?

Thanks for the input

I cannot accurately give an answer to your inquiries but I can give a guesstimate pertaining to your second 'Q'

I can only imagine if a HVS/HVP were to be zooming along at speeds ranging 1-1.6 million mph & depending on the size of the stars/planets involved...If they were to collide with any foreign body within their speedy path It would be nothing short of absolute,incredible oblivion...BOOM!!!....I would think utter annihilation for both satellites.

I'm no expert with #'s if you can forgive me for my crude explanation.

Thinking about the asteroid belt comes to mind,makes you wander if the belt could possibly be remnants from an ancient collision of some kind like from a hypervelocity star/planet???...Maybe it was a HVS or HSP?? IMHO I think anything is possible.