A runaway star in the Large Magellanic cloud

by: ESO/Novapix
Reference: a-eto99-20001
Date: 2006-11-11

The star HE0457-5439 is a massive star wich lies closer to one of the Milky Way satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, located 160,000 light-years away from us. This is a runaway star, moving at more than 2.6 million kilometres per hour. Astronomers find it likely for the star to have reached its present position had it been ejected from the centre of the LMC. The background image has been obtained at La Silla observatory, the star moving has been added.

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