Fast moving exoplanet system may be the fastest ever discovered
SPACE (KXAN) — A star flying through the night sky may be the fastest-moving solar system in our galaxy. Possibly a planet a little larger than Neptune orbiting a small star, the system could be moving at least 1.2 million miles per hour, according to NASA.
First discovered in 2011, the system was included in a research project led by Sean Terry with the University of Maryland, College Park, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Terry’s paper on the star was published in February in The Astronomical Journal.
“We think this is a so-called super-Neptune world orbiting a low-mass star at a distance that would lie between the orbits of Venus and Earth if it were in our solar system,” Terry said in a press release from NASA.
Using data collected in 2011 and then again in 2021, Terry’s team discovered the system is about 24,000 light years away and is located within the center of the Milky Way.
Comparing data, they calculated how fast the system was traveling.
Fast-moving star systems
Terry said it could be traveling faster than 1.2 million miles per hour. They were only able to track the system’s movement from left to right. It could be moving relatively further or closer to Earth, meaning it could be moving even faster.
The system was observed using microlensing. This phenomenon occurs when the mass of an object in space causes space, time and light to curve. This essentially acts like a magnifying glass.
During a microlensing study, a pair of objects were revealed as part of the system. One of the bodies was 2,300 times heavier than the other, but their exact sizes couldn’t be determined.
In the 2011 study, the team discovered one body was likely a star about 20% the size of our sun, while the other was 29 times heavier than Earth.
It could also be a rogue planet — a planet without a star system — about four times heavier than Jupiter with a small moon.
Using data from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite, scientists came to the conclusion it was likely the small star and planet system.
