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A velocity kick (or just kick) is the substantial acceleration of an astronomical object giving it a substantial peculiar velocity, often the result of a supernova. A common use of the term is for the acceleration of a neutron star due to asymmetry in the core collapse supernova that produced it. This is called a neutron star kick (NS kick), or if it is a pulsar, a pulsar kick. A stellar-mass black hole may also show evidence of such a kick. All these are presumed to arise due to asymmetric blasts but the exact mechanisms are of research interest.
Such kicks are also presumed to be the cause of some free-floating planets due to interactions between planets within a planetary system, and of some hypervelocity stars due to interactions within a globular cluster. An object not in its expected location may be termed kicked out. Interactions between pairs of objects are relatively simple and limited, and sometimes substantial kicks result when a third object is involved. I believe some supermassive black hole's have been presumed to be kicked away from the galaxy center by a larger one, after a galaxy merger.