Rare hypervelocity star may escape Milky Way

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An object spotted with the help of citizen scientists was moving so fast through the Milky Way that it escaped the galaxy's gravity and reached intergalactic space, new research shows.

Probably a faint red star, the object was zooming along at about 1.3 million miles per hour (600 kilometers per second). For comparison, the sun orbits the Milky Way at 450,000 miles per hour (200 kilometers per second).

If confirmed, the object would be the first known very-low-mass "hypervelocity" star, ...