SSS 2008-03-10（在线收听）

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

 Astronomers have discovered a star that’s running away from home. The star is speeding away at a blistering 2.6 million kilometers an hour, apparently after being cast out of a neighboring galaxy 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 fugitive　was sent on its way must like a slingshot propels a stone. They think it was part of a two-star or binary 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 Milky Way buddies, 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.