Invading Stars Faster Than Speeding Bullet

[Fraser]

A team of astronomers looking for pre-planetary nebulas using the Hubble Space Telescope instead came across some renegade stars screaming through space. These runaway stars are moving along at 50 km/s (112,000 miles an hour), and have traveled an estimated 160 light years from where they originated. “We think we have found a [...]

More... (http://www.universetoday.com/2009/01/07/invading-stars-faster-than-speeding-bullet/)

[sohh_fly]

could this have anything to do with satellite dwarf galaxies getting eatin up?

[timb]

50 km/s is not particularly fast. Hyper-velocity stars travel at 300+ km/s relative to the galactic rest frame. Runaway star is usually applied (http://arxiv.org/abs/0811.0576) to a high velocity star originating from a close binary disrupted by the supernova of one of its components.