The Hyper-Velocity Stars Project

The stars

Normally stars have velocities of around 100 km/s. These stars are in our galaxy's gravitational control and, therefore, are in a nice orbit around its center. However,  Hyper Velocity Stars (HVSs) have velocities of over 1000 km/s. These stars are so fast that the gravitational pull of our galaxy is overcome. They reach the escape velocity and hurtle out of the galaxy. There are a few theories about what makes them achieve this velocity. They could be the result of a supernova as is believed to be the case of HVS #3 [see this article here] that came from the Large Magellanic Cloud. They could be the result of a binary star system passing too close to the gravitational well of the super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy. One of the stars of the system gets caught by the huge gravity well and the other one is thrown free at very high speed achieving escape velocity. There are only 16 confirmed Hyper-Velocity Stars known. Currently, it is thought that there are only 1000 or so associated with our galaxy. There are around a 100 billion stars in the Milky Way.  All the known HVSs are blue because they looked only at the blue stars on the SDSS path, but it is theorized that there must be older HVSs.  

The project

What we want to do is to find more of these stars, even if it's just one. The discovery of even one more of these stars will be a huge accomplishment. With the help of many people, we could have a good chance of finding one or more than one.  We have a list of possible HVSs too.  Most of the HVSs found until now have been found by Dr. Warren R. Brown from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Harvard University.





List of confirmed Hyper-Velocity Stars

HVS#1    588010358530507060    
HVS#2    588013383268565133  
HVS#3*  *HE0437-54393  Out of the SDSS path, possibly from the Large Magellanic Cloud.    
HVS#4    588017979949842518  
HVS#5    587738068348960770  
HVS#6    587732771585458263
HVS#7    588848901520359456
HVS#8    587741821063790648  
HVS#9    588848898828140657    
HVS#10  587742775095918754
HVS#11  587728949047460025
HVS#12  587726033851515031
HVS#13  588848899905290419
HVS#14  587732577236484229
HVS#15  587724650864771241
HVS#16  587742954934698122

Team members in no particular order:  Mukund Vedapudi, Stellar190, Jules, Dave, Curtis Garrett, Thomas J, Jamartins, Gargleblaster, BlackProjects, Alice, Half65 and  Lovethetropics.

Our library

http://www.galaxyzooforum.org/index.php?topic=276167.msg371869#msg371869


Our fairy godmothers are Alice for all the help she has provided and Waveney for giving us a place to get this project going (well I guess he is our fairy godfather)

Thank you so much for your support dear fairy godmother! 

So, tell us, Hyper Velocity Zooites. How do we go about finding these special stars?

We need help figuring out how to find them.  Suggestions, advice and comments very welcome. 

Would it not be an idea to ask Dr Warren R Brown what yardsticks and visual/etc. markers he used to help him discover those he has already found?

Yes, and Karen Masters told me they were co-workers for years and she would hook us up with him.  I even volunteered the team to HELP HIM in any task he needed done.

Great idea JohnF! 

Well that would only show the ones that are crossing our line of sight...the ones coming towards us or leaving will not show (I think)  I say that because that happens with the asteroids...if you see an asteroid sideways it will show the three colors, but if it's coming toward us or getting away you may see two colors or even only one color.

The ones approaching us or leaving will have a redshift or blueshift!

YES!!  That is a wonderful idea then!!  As our dear Waveney says we all help at the cutting edge of ignorance.

My radical idea is a "Star Pattern Zoo". A telescope should take a picture of a collection of faraway stars, and then take another one of the same spot 10 years later. Then false-colour both images differently, and then superimpose them to make an average colour. E.g. one set blue, one set pink. The superimposed image should therefore be purple. Any blue or pink stars appearing have moved. Parallax of course would have to be taken into account . . . Or zooites could just recognise patterns

Alice, we may have that already.   Maybe not 10 years but pretty close.  It all depends on when the SDSS images were taken on Leo and surrounding area.