A strange and high-speed object, more than 27,306 times the size of the earth, is traveling at a staggering 2,000,000 km per hour through our galaxy, and it could be on its way out of the Milky Way, according to NASA. This colossal drifting plasma ball was detected more than 400 light years from Earth, which is equivalent to six billion miles. To put that in perspective, a light year is about six trillion miles, so we’re talking about an enormous distance.
This is the incredibly rapid object that moves through interstellar space
The scientists determined that the mysterious object was traveling at a dizzying speed of two million kilometers per hour when they detected it. Although experts have not determined what the new celestial body is, they speculated that it is a “Brown dwarf”, a star that is bigger than a planet but lacks the mass to support long-term nuclear fusion in its nucleus, such as the Earth’s sun. This is very different from other stars, like the one that was thought to be on the verge of exploding, but was recently found to have something unexpected behind it.
Using the Keck II telescope, astronomers have discovered an object that could be a brown dwarf or a low-mass star, which exhibits a very high radial speed. Baptized as CWISE J124909.08+362116.0, it is about 400 light years away. Brown dwarfs are intermediate objects between planets and stars, occupying a mass range between 13 and 80 Jupiter masses. They are formed like ordinary stars but are not massive enough to allow hydrogen thermonuclear fusion in the nucleus.
How does it travel at such great speed?
According to the study, CWISE J1249+3621 has a great radial speed of 103 km/s. This gives a speed in the galactic rest system of 456 km/s, which corresponds to 1530 light years in a million years. Since this result is slightly lower than the expansion speed of galaxies within the radius of the Sun, it’s a remarkable discovery. The observations have shown that CWISE J1249+3621 has a mass of approximately 0.082 solar masses and its effective temperature is estimated between 1,715 and 2,320 K.
If it is confirmed that the object is a brown dwarf, it would be the first to be documented in a chaotic and hypervelocity orbit, able to free itself from our galaxy of origin. The metallicity of CWISE J1249+3621 is between -1.4 and -0.5, which provides more clues about its composition and origins.
This is the possible origin of the CWISE J1249+3621 object
Based on the data collected, the authors of the article suggest that CWISE J1249+3621 is probably not a brown dwarf of type L. They emphasize that it could be the first hypervelocity star of low known mass and the object of this type closest to Earth. When trying to determine the origin of CWISE J1249+3621, researchers are considering several different hypotheses, including the expulsion from the galactic center more than three billion years ago or survival as a companion of a white dwarf that increased and exploded.
In one theory, CWISE J1249 arose from a binary or two-star stellar system after its sister star, a “white dwarf,” died, collapsing in an explosive nuclear fusion reaction called a supernova. Another viable theory argues that CWISE J1249 originated within a compact star called a “globular cluster” where it was thrown free by the attraction of a black hole.
More studies of the physical and atmospheric properties of this object are required to elucidate its true origin. The chemistry of this high-speed object could contain “clues about which of these scenarios is more likely”, whether it was thrown by a black hole or a white dwarf in collapse, or if it’s a gas giant or a brown dwarf in flames.