Intelligent aliens control the fastest stars in the Milky Way: insights from a new theory.

If an extraterrestrial civilization wishes to explore the Milky Way or needs to find valuable resources far from its home, it might transform its native stars into natural spaceships. Scientists believe that the so-called hypervelocity stars, which move rapidly through the Milky Way, could be such spaceships controlled by aliens. This research has been published on the preprint server arXiv, as reported by Live Science.

Potential extraterrestrial civilizations that have existed for a long time, possibly longer than humanity, may have the desire to relocate to another part of the Milky Way. This could be for exploration, seeking valuable resources, or simply to escape an impending cosmic disaster, such as a supernova explosion.

The vast distances between stars require a significant amount of time for travel, and these movements are complex in themselves. Therefore, scientists believe that instead of moving from one star system to another, aliens might take their entire system with them on their journey. This means they would accelerate their native stars to achieve hypervelocity, resulting in the stars observed in the Milky Way.

To accelerate a star and make it move quickly through the galaxy from one location to another along with its planets, extraterrestrials might cause the star to eject its material.

According to scientists, most stars in our galaxy are binary. Thus, we might overlook half of the potential hypervelocity stars that show signs of artificial intervention.

The authors of the study believe that the best-controlled system, which could create optimal thrust, is a binary system comprising a neutron star and a low-mass star similar to the Sun.

An extraterrestrial civilization could use asymmetric magnetic fields or a device that induces uneven heating on the star's surface to cause it to eject its material and generate thrust.

This means that aliens would make the star eject more material in one direction than in another. Consequently, the binary system would move through the galaxy, according to scientists.

If an extraterrestrial civilization could place a device on or near the neutron star, where strong gravity could provide an ample energy source, they could control the binary system by turning the device on and off. This way, the aliens could alter the direction of the entire system's movement, say the scientists.

Scientists note that there are several known hypervelocity stars in our galaxy that fit the proposed model. Although it is unlikely that they are controlled by aliens, the authors of the study believe that we should search for something similar in space.