Produced by: Tarun Mishra
NASA identified a mysterious object moving at a speed of one million miles per hour. The object, located over 400 light-years from Earth, is more than 27,306 times the size of our planet.
Credit: NASA
Scientists speculate that the object might be a "brown dwarf," a type of star larger than a planet but too small to sustain long-term nuclear fusion, distinguishing it from stars like the Sun.
If confirmed as a brown dwarf, this would be the first one documented with a hyper-speed orbit capable of escaping the Milky Way. The object's velocity could allow it to break free from our galaxy.
The celestial body was first spotted by volunteers from NASA's "Backyard Worlds: Planet 9" project. German citizen-scientist Martin Kabatnik and others were instrumental in identifying the object's rapid movement.
Credit: NASA
Several theories explain the object's incredible speed. One suggests it was ejected from a binary star system after its companion, a white dwarf, went supernova. Another theory posits that it was flung from a globular cluster by a black hole's gravitational pull.
The discovery was made using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope. This telescope has previously identified thousands of minor planets and star clusters within our galaxy.
NASA plans to focus more equipment on the object to determine its chemical composition. Understanding its makeup could provide clues about its origin and confirm whether it is a gas giant or a brown dwarf.
Credit: NASA
Researchers have simulated 100 potential paths for the object, with some scenarios predicting that it could eventually fling itself out of the Milky Way. There is a 17% chance that it will become unbound from our galaxy within 10 billion years.