January 7, 2016

Runaway stars with their bow shocks. On the right one taken by the WISE space telescope, the other two were taken by the Spitzer space telescope

Analyzing the observations made using NASA’s Spitzer WISE space telescopes, many runaway stars were discovered. Those stars are called that way for the remarkable speed they’re moving at in space. One way to identify a potential runaway star is to seek what in jargon is called “bow shock” and indicates the area between a magnetosphere and a surrounding environment. It’s an arc-shaped structure that extends in front of the star and can be very extensive.