 The more we look among the stars and galaxies, the weirder things seem to get. Even space itself is puzzling, for example. Recent studies suggest that the fabric of the universe stretches more than 150 billion light-years across -- in spite of the fact that the cosmos is 13.7 billion years old. From super-fast stars to the nature of matter, here we cover other strange and mysterious elements of the universe. 10. Hypervelocity Stars If you've ever gazed at the night sky, you've probably wished upon a shooting star (which are really meteors). But shooting stars do exist, and they're as rare as one in 100 million. In 2005, astronomers discovered the first "hypervelocity" star careening out of a galaxy at nearly 530 miles per second (10 times faster than ordinary star movement). We have ideas about what flings these rare stars into deep space, but aren't certain; anything from off-kilter supernova explosions to supermassive black holes might be responsible. Caption: Artist's rendition of a hypervelocity star leaving a galaxy. Credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics |
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