Astronomers have discovered an ultra-fast star travelling at more than 3.7 million miles per hour.

It was ejected by the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way five million years ago – around the time human ancestors were learning to walk on two feet.

The star, known as S5-HVS1, was discovered by Sergey Koposov from Carnegie Mellon University as part of the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S5).

Located in the constellation of Grus – the Crane – it was found to be moving 10 times faster than most stars in the Milky Way at six million km/h (3.72 million mph).

Douglas Boubert, from the University of Oxford, a co-author on the study, said: “The velocity of the discovered star is so high that it will inevitably leave the Galaxy and never return.”

High-velocity stars were discovered two decades ago and since then have fascinated astronomers.

Scientists say S5-HVS1 is unprecedented due to its high speed and close passage to the Earth – only 29,000 light years away.

Read more: yahoo