Scientists have discovered a mysterious object at the center of our Milky Way that does not fit the criteria of anything else in the galaxy.
The team found the object emits microwaves, which suggests it contains dust and fast-moving gas that is traveling nearly 112,000 miles per hour from a very small area in the heart of our galaxy.
Astronomers have considered a range of options for what the object could be, from a black hole to a collapsing cloud and evolved star, but found ‘its features do not match well with those of any known type of astronomical body.’
The team found the object emits microwaves, which has suggested it contains dust and fast-moving gas. The gas was detected moving nearly 112,000 miles per hour from a very small area in the heart of our galaxy
‘The center of our Galaxy contains billions of stars, tens of millions of solar masses of gas, a supermassive black hole, a tenth of our Galaxy’s ongoing star formation, and an extensive graveyard of stellar remnants,’ researchers shared in the study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
‘It is therefore the likeliest place to find new classes of objects. We present one such object in this work.
The object, labeled G0.02467–0.0727, was discovered using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observatory in Chile.
‘We consider several explanations for the Millimeter Ultra-Broad Line Object (MUBLO), including protostellar outflow, explosive outflow, collapsing cloud, evolved star, stellar merger, high-velocity compact cloud, intermediate mass black hole, and background galaxy,’ the team wrote.
‘Most of these conceptual models are either inconsistent with the data or do not fully explain it.’
The object was observed while the team was ALMA to study a special area in the center of our galaxy, known as the central molecular zone (CMZ).
The CMZ, measuring about 700 light-years across, contains nearly 80 percent of all the dense gas in the galaxy and is home to giant molecular clouds and massive star forming clusters that are poorly understood.
Astronomers detected millimeter waves coming from the object, with the surrounding dust showing broad, spread-out signals.
The object also gave off continuous radiation, which appeared to come from the dust and emitted specific signals from certain molecules like carbon monosulfide and sulfur monoxide.
Carbon monosulfide has been detected in molecular clouds and sulfur monoxide has been observed around Io, one of Jupiter’s moons.
Scientists have discovered a mysterious object at the center of our Milky Way that does not fit the criteria of anything else in our universe
The object, labeled G0.02467–0.0727, was discovered using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observatory in Chile, which also detected the microwaves speeding through space
The gas’s temperature was around -436 degrees Fahrenheit, much colder than what has been typically seen in this part of the galaxy.
Researches also found that the gas molecules were not traveling in a simple ring, which suggested they could be flowing away from an exploding star, reported Nature.
However, shock waves create specific chemicals that MUBLO lacks.
Researchers said that the most plausible explanations would be an intermediate-mass black hole or a pair of merging stars obscured by dust.
But they also noted that the object does not fit either definition.
‘The MUBLO is, at present, an observationally unique object,’ the team concluded in the study.
