Scientists may have spotted a tiny star, possibly with an alien world in tow, shooting through the Milky Way around 500 times faster than a speeding bullet. This would make this the fastest planetary system ever seen. However, there is still uncertainty about the true nature of the speeding object and its companion.
In 2011, researchers indirectly spotted a pair of mysterious objects in the Milky Way, via a phenomenon known as "microlensing" — a low-level form of gravitational lensing where light gets "bent" as it passes through space-time that is distorted by large objects. Although the team did not directly see or measure the pair, the gravitational anomalies revealed the larger object was around 2,300 times heavier than the smaller object. One of the leading theories to explain this was that the pair consisted of a small star being orbited by a sizable exoplanet located somewhere in the "galactic bulge" of stars near the Milky Way's center.
