The mysterious object named CWISE J1249 has just escaped the brink of destruction and is racing away fast enough to break free from the gravitational pull of the Milky Way Galaxy.
According to SciTech Daily, citizen scientists collaborating with NASA’s Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project have discovered a mysterious object with super speed known as CWISE J1249.
With a velocity sufficient to withstand the gravitational force of the Earth’s galaxy, the Milky Way, CWISE J1249 is hurtling into intergalactic space at a speed of approximately 1 million miles per hour (1.6 million kilometers per hour).
Additionally, it is the first super-speed object identified with a mass similar to or less than that of a small star.
Graphic depicting a brown dwarf (left) alongside a supernova. The brown dwarf may be the newly discovered object – (Graphic: Adam Makarenko / WM Keck Observatory).
Initial analyses suggest that this mysterious object could be an unusual low-mass star. The most likely possibility is that it is a brown dwarf.
A brown dwarf occupies a state between a star and a planet: It is too large for the size limits of a planet and has no parent star, yet is too small to sustain nuclear fusion in its core like a star does.
Therefore, brown dwarfs are sometimes referred to as “failed stars” or “super planets.”
Brown dwarfs are not exceedingly rare. Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 has identified over 4,000 brown dwarfs.
However, no other brown dwarf is known to be fleeing from the Milky Way.
Moreover, this object possesses unique characteristics. Data obtained from the WM Keck Observatory in Maunakea, Hawaii, indicates that it is significantly less metallic than other stars and brown dwarfs.
This unusual composition suggests that CWISE J1249 is an ancient object, potentially originating from one of the earliest generations of stars in our galaxy. Thus, it has become a treasure for researchers.
But the reason for this object’s high-speed movement remains a mystery.
The most supported hypothesis is that CWISE J1249 originally came from a binary star system with a white dwarf.
The white dwarf may have “devoured” CWISE J1249 to such an extent that it became overloaded with material, exploded as a supernova, and flung the brown dwarf away.
Another possibility is that CWISE J1249 originated from a tightly bound, ancient star cluster known as a globular cluster. A chance encounter with a pair of black holes with extremely complex interactions could have propelled it away.
