Is fastest exoplanet ever being dragged by hypervelocity star?

A possible hypervelocity star racing through space with a Neptune-like planet in tow has been discovered by Nasa scientists.

At an incredible speed of 1.2 million miles per hour which is equivalent to 1.9 million kilometres per hour, the system appears to be moving. In case the discovery is further confirmed, then this will be the fastest extrasolar planet, “exoplanet”, system ever seen, reported Space.com.

"We think this is a so-called super-Neptune world orbiting a low-mass star at a distance that would lie between the orbits of Venus and Earth if it were in our solar system," said team leader Sean Terry, who is also a researcher at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre.

He added: "If so, it will be the first planet ever found orbiting a hypervelocity star."

Due to a chance alignment and a phenomenon of general relativity, the star and the planet it drags along with it were first hinted at in data collected way back in 2011.

When planets pass background stars not associated with them, gravitational lensing becomes useful to planet-hunters.

Moreover, a tiny shift in the stars' position is caused by the way these planets warp space when seen from Earth.

Using traditional light-based astronomy, this effect called “microlensing” can therefore be used to detect otherwise dark planets way beyond the limits of the solar system that are effectively invisible.