Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
CWISE J1249, 400 light-years away, speeds through space at 1.6 million km/h, baffling scientists.
Identified through NASA’s Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project, volunteers spotted its rapid movement.
Weighing 30,000 Earth masses, it holds 8% of the Sun’s mass and lacks typical stellar composition.
It could be a brown dwarf, a celestial body too small for fusion yet larger than a planet.
Its low metal content hints at origins from the first generation of our galaxy’s stars.
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One theory suggests a supernova explosion in a binary system propelled it to incredible speeds.
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Alternatively, a gravitational slingshot from black hole interactions in a star cluster may explain its velocity.
Astronomers aim to uncover its origin, composition, and how it defied known cosmic laws.
CWISE J1249 remains a tantalizing puzzle, challenging our understanding of stellar dynamics and the cosmos.
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