SSS 2008-03-10

（单词翻译）

This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky. Got a minute?

 Astronomers¹ have discovered a star that’s running away from home. The star is speeding away at a blistering² 2.6 million kilometers an hour, apparently³ after being cast out of a neighboring galaxy⁴ to us, the Large Magellanic Cloud, probably by a massive black hole. The speeding star is the first hint that there may indeed be a black hole in the LMC. The astronomers writing in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters reckoned that the flung fugitive⁵　was sent on its way must like a slingshot propels a stone. They think it was part of a two-star or binary⁶ system. Its companion got sucked into the black hole and this one known as HE 0437-5439 was tossed on its way. The astronomers say that the star cannot be one of our own Milky⁷ Way buddies⁸, because the elements composing it in different amounts from those in the Milky Way. HEO-437 is not the only star fling the Milky Way though, the researchers say there are 9 others beating away from our galaxy, but they say it’s clear that those are Milky Way natives.

Thanks for the minute for Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky.