

Hubble Discovery: Massive Star Booted from its Home  - edw519
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20004780-501465.html?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.11

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carbocation
"Astronomers have released photos of a massive star that they say was kicked
out of its home about 180,000 miles from Earth."

Surely they mean light-years, but I was reading this while eating my lunch and
choked.

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teaspoon
And they report that "The 30 Doradus Nebula... is 90 times more massive than
the Sun" when their own excerpt says that 30 Doradus contains several stars
"topping 100 solar masses _each_ "?

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turnersauce
I suppose that they meant to say that the traveling star was 90 times more
massive than the sun[1]... this reporter seems awfully confused. A little
proofreading goes a long way.

[1] [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/runaway-
sta...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/runaway-star.html)

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lutorm
Weird, a 90 solar mass star is pretty heavy to get kicked to that speed. They
say that 30 Dor contains several stars weighing > 100 solar masses, but those
kinds of masses are very near the absolute upper limit to how large stars can
form. Generally to get kicked to very high velocities, you need to interact
with something more massive than yourself.

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scotty79
Couldn't the 'kick' be attributed to passing close to a black-hole?

