Self-Propelled Stars

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

The best thing about nature is it always turns out to be so much stranger than anything we could have ever imagined by ourselves!

originally posted by: St Udio
a reply to: swanne


our Sun creates a Heliosphere of Solar Wind which is material/light emitted from the 360 degree surface of our Star...
as the Sun & Heliosphere orbit the Galaxy Center.... the area directly in front of the Sun (slamming into empty space) the front edge of the Heliosphere creates a Bow-Wave (much like a ship at sea)

Like this model:
www.researchgate.net...


I think between speeding up or slowing down, if this bow shock interaction were to have any effect it would be more likely to slow down a stars motion, rather than speed it up. When a boat moves through water, the resistance of the water is slowing the boat down, not speeding it up. However, I doubt this has any significant effect on a star either way, given the mass and density of the star versus the low densities of the material at the bow shock and trail of the sun.

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
Even if the effect you describe did produce some acceleration it would be negligible. More importantly it still wouldn't explain how the stars manage to stay in orbit around the galaxy while moving at such speeds. That is why we postulate there must be some sort of invisible mass holding them in place.

Very correct. Even if a star was self-propelled somehow, at the speeds they are going, they should shoot off outside the galaxy, like if you twirl a ball on a string overhead and let go of the string. There isn't enough gravity from visible matter to maintain the orbits at those high speeds, just as you say.