USATODAY.com – Exiled stars: Milky Way boots members
One of the newfound exiles is moving in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major at about 1.25 million mph with respect to the galaxy. It is 240,000 light-years away. The other is headed toward the constellation Cancer, outbound at 1.43 million miles per hour and 180,000 light-years away. …. Both of the newfound outcasts are outside the galaxy’s main plane but have yet to leave the halo, a bigger sphere of the Milky Way’s influence that is perhaps 300,000 light-years in diameter. But they will leave, said Warren Brown of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
It never ceases to boggle my mind at the vast astronomical distances in space. One light year is around 6 trillion miles, pretty damn far. Perhaps though, one day, when we earn experience in distant space exploration, we could probe one of these stars exile from another neighboring galaxy and study its composition. 🙂