Leave a Comment SAO scientist Nelson Caldwell has used the MMT and Hectospec instrument to discover the first hypervelocity globular cluster, located near the central galaxy of the Virgo Cluster. Read more.
The fast-flying cluster of old stars was caught zooming away from the galaxy M87 at nearly 2300 km/s! While Caldwell and collaborators have already confirmed 500 new globular clusters in this region, this object is the first of its kind to be seen careening at such a high speed. One possibility is that it was ejected from M87 or one of the other galaxies in the Virgo Cluster following a violent encounter with two other objects, which sent it slingshotting out of the system. Read the original article here.
