Blast sends star hurtling across the Milky Way

An exploding white dwarf star blasted itself out of its orbit with another star in a "partial supernova" and is now hurtling across our galaxy, according to a new study from the University of Warwick.

It opens up the possibility of many more survivors of supernovae traveling undiscovered through the Milky Way, as well as other types of supernovae occurring in other galaxies that astronomers have never seen before.

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Credit: University of Warwick/Mark Garlick

The material ejected by the supernova will initially expand very rapidly, but then gradually slow down, forming an intricate giant bubble of hot glowing gas. Eventually, the charred remains of the white dwarf that exploded will overtake these gaseous layers, and speed out onto its journey across the galaxy.

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This animation shows the explosion of a white dwarf, an extremely dense remnant of a star that can no longer burn nuclear fuel at its core. In this "type Ia" supernova, white dwarf's gravity steals material away from a nearby stellar companion.

When the white dwarf reaches an estimated 1.4 times the current mass of the Sun, it can no longer sustain its own weight, and blows up.

Stellar explosions forge and distribute materials that make up the world in which we live, and also hold clues to how fast the universe is expanding.