astronomer have a phenomenal assistant in the search for runaway stars – a piece of software designed to mime the human brain . Researchers are using the contrived neuronal web to sift through a huge database to find stars that come along to be flee the shopping center of the Milky Way .
The software was designed to work on the Gaia data point set , which includes the distances and velocities of about 2 million stars . Out of those 2 million , six were complain out of the galactic gist and are now flying through the galaxy at 500 kilometre ( 310 geographical mile ) per secondly . This uncovering is reported in theMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society .
“ These hypervelocity stars are extremely important to consider the overall structure of our Milky Way , ” carbon monoxide - writer Elena Maria Rossi , from Leiden University in the Netherlands , said in astatement . “ These are stars that have travelled great distance through the Galaxy but can be hunt back to its core – an area so dense and obnubilate by interstellar gas and rubble that it is unremarkably very difficult to keep – so they grant all important information about the gravitative line of business of the Milky Way from the meat to its outskirts . ”
The discovery was presented at theEuropean Week of Astronomy and Space Sciencein Prague , Czech Republic , and shows just how Gaia ’s enormous database can touch astronomy . The Gaia mission , which belong to the European Space Agency , is building the most accurate 3D map of the Milky Way . So far , it has cataloged the position of1 billion wizard .
Only 20 runaway star were pick out before this research . The Gaia database clearly offers a unique opportunity to get hold more of these objects , but looking for them in Gaia is like look for a phonograph needle in a rick in the darkness .
“ In the end , we select to utilize an stilted neural connection , which is software designed to mimic how our brain puzzle out , ” chair author Tommaso Marchetti , a Ph.D. student at Leiden University , explain . “ After proper ‘ breeding ’ , it can instruct how to tell apart sure aim or patterns in a huge data point set . In our causa , we teach it to spot hypervelocity stars in a astral catalog like the one amass with Gaia . ”
It took the software system just one time of day to abbreviate the catalog to 20,000 interesting objects . A few cultivation admit it to further reduce it to 80 possible runaway ace . The team collected as much information as possible about these 80 objects from other catalogs .
“ combine all these information , we found that six stars can be traced back to the Galactic Centre , all with velocities above 360 km / s , ” added Marchetti .
The squad trust to find more of these unbelievable objects inGaia’snext data sack in April 2018 .
