Going, going, gone: star leaves the Milky Way

In this illustration, the hot, blue star HE 0437-5439 has been tossed out of the centre of our Milky Way galaxy with enough speed to escape the galaxy's gravitational clutches. The stellar outcast is rocketing through the Milky Way's distant outskirts at 2.6 million kilometres per hour, high above the galaxy's disk, about 200,000 light-years from the centre. The star is destined to roam intergalactic space.