Mystery Object at Breakneck Speed Stuns Galaxy Scientists

NASA has detected a rogue celestial object speeding through the Milky Way at an incredible velocity, which could soon propel it out of our galaxy. This discovery was made by citizen scientists collaborating on NASA’s ‘Backyard Worlds: Planet 9’ project, identifying the object as potentially 27,306 times larger than Earth.

Traveling at a staggering one million miles per hour, the object is currently situated more than 400 light-years away from Earth. Due to its immense speed, it is expected to escape the gravitational pull of the Milky Way and enter intergalactic space shortly. While its exact nature is not yet confirmed, it is suspected to be a brown dwarf—a type of celestial body that is bigger than a planet yet lacks enough mass to sustain continuous nuclear fusion like the sun.

German citizen-scientist Martin Kabatnik, a participant in NASA’s Backyard Worlds program, expressed immense excitement over the discovery. He recounted his initial disbelief at the object’s velocity, thinking it must have already been known.

This object, if confirmed as a brown dwarf, would be the first of its kind observed in such a rapid, potentially galaxy-exiting orbit. Initially spotted a few years ago by Martin Kabatnik, Thomas P. Bickle, and Dan Caselden, its existence was confirmed using several ground-based telescopes. It has since been cataloged as CWISE J124909.08+362116.0, or CWISE J1249 for short.

The origins of this high-velocity object are thought to trace back to the early generations of stars in our galaxy. Observations from the WM Keck Observatory in Maunakea, Hawaii, revealed that it contains significantly less iron and other metals than other stars and brown dwarfs, indicating its ancient nature.

Scientists theorize that this supposed brown dwarf was originally part of a binary star system. Its trajectory into space might have been triggered by a supernova explosion following the death of its companion white dwarf star. Another possibility is that CWISE J1249 was ejected from a globular cluster by the gravitational forces of a black hole.

Astronomer Dr. Kyle Kremer, involved in studying the object, explained the dynamics of such interactions: when a star comes close to a black hole binary within a globular cluster, the complex forces at play can effectively fling it out of the cluster.