Mysterious High-Speed Object Found in Milky Way Center
Astronomers working at the Atacama Large Millimeter Array radio telescope complex in Chile have discovered a strange object in the center of our Milky Way galaxy that “defies any definition.” The astronomers’ work was published in the scientific journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The object was found to be emitting microwaves, leading to the conclusion that it was likely dust and gas traveling at about 112,000 miles per hour.
Astronomers looked at a variety of theories about what this object could be, from a black hole to a collapsing cloud to an evolved star, but none of the versions matched the characteristics of this mysterious object.
In general, it turned out that no type of known astronomical body is suitable for identifying the detected object.
“The center of our Galaxy contains billions of stars, tens of millions of solar masses of gas, a supermassive black hole, a tenth of the ongoing star formation in our Galaxy, and a vast graveyard of stellar remnants. Therefore, it is the most likely place to discover new classes of objects. In this work, we we present one such object,” write the authors of the discovery.
“We considered several explanations for MUBLO, including protostellar outflow, explosive outflow, collapsing cloud, evolved star, stellar merger, high-velocity compact cloud, intermediate-mass black hole, and background galaxy. Most of these conceptual models either do not fit the data or do not explain them fully”.
The object was discovered while the team was studying a special region in the center of the Milky Way known as the central molecular zone (CMZ). This zone, about 700 light-years wide, contains almost 80% of all the dense gas in the galaxy and is home to giant molecular clouds and massive star-forming clusters that are still poorly understood.
The temperature of the gas in the object was about -436 degrees Fahrenheit (-260 degrees Celsius), much colder than what is typically observed in this part of the galaxy.
The closest MUBLO’s characteristics were to an intermediate-mass black hole, but still very different. “MUBLO is currently a unique object to observe,” the team ultimately said.
