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There is strong evidence for a super massive black hole at the center
of the Milky Way. A natural consequence of a super massive black hole
in a dense stellar environment like the Galactic Center is the
creation of "hyper-velocity stars," stars ejected at 1000 km/s
velocities. We have discovered a star traveling 709 km/s straight out
of the Galaxy. The star is a 3 solar mass B star, just like the stars
seen in the Galactic Center, but at a distance 120 kpc from the
Galactic Center. The most plausible explanation is that this is a
hyper-velocity star ejected by the super massive black hole. If we
can find more hyper-velocity stars, we can constrain the production
mechanism and probe the history of the massive black hole. We conclude
by showing preliminary results of our follow-up survey for additional
hyper-velocity stars.
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