Zeta Oph

One of the bookmarks in the toolbar of my web browser is labelled APOD, and takes me to http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/, a site (obviously) run by NASA. APOD stands for Astronomy Picture Of the Day, and when I've already checked email, Facebook, and Blogger for interesting ways to waste my time on the internet, APOD often provides me with several seconds of wonder. That's really all I'm looking for - there was a video up the other day (occasionally they're AVODs instead of APODS) that lasted more than 9 minutes, and I opted out. Sometimes I read the details of the descriptions below the photographs, but more often then not I just skim enough to be able to put a name to what I'm looking at. Some days, the photos themselves are the cool part - the photographer has done something interesting with the exposure, or captured a curious light effect, etc; some days, the subject matter makes my jaw drop. Yes, that's an actual photograph of light that's lightyears away. Yes, that's a world being born, or dying.

But today, what caught my attention wasn't the photograph itself - though it's awesome as usual - but the heading, which describes the photograph's content as a "runaway star". I glanced at it, as usual, ready to ignore the finer print, scientific explanation of what I was looking at. More often than not, I lean toward the "oh, look at the pretty lights" kind of astronomy. But the phrase "runaway star" caught my interest, as a matter of language rather than science. The part of my head that still thinks like a children's picture book wanted to know: what does a star have to run away from?