The dark abyss of space is seemingly endless to explore. There are countless celestial bodies floating in this dark ocean of space. For centuries, scientists and astronomers have classified various objects into lists and categories. This time, however, a team of researchers has discovered an object at the center of the Milky Way that does not fit into these categories. It is a unique object, never seen before. The details of its discovery and analysis have been published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The center of the Milky Way is teeming with billions of stars, tens of millions of gas masses, a supermassive black hole, forming stars and a vast graveyard of stellar remains. So this was the most likely place where they could discover an astronomical object. But what they ultimately saw left them stunned.
The mysterious object was first discovered when researchers observed the central molecular zone (CMZ), a special region in the Galactic Center known for its dense gas and star-forming regions. The object appeared to be bubbling with cold dust and fast-moving gas moving nearly 110,000 miles per hour from a small region in the heart of our Milky Way, according to Daily Express. The gas temperature around the object was recorded at -436 degrees Fahrenheit, significantly colder than typically observed in this part of the Milky Way. Another strange behavior the object displayed was that it only emitted microwaves.
To understand the object, they compared it to previously known astronomical objects such as a supernova or an evolved star. However, this object did not match the properties of any of the known celestial bodies. The team named the object “Millimeter Ultra Broad Line Object” (MUBLO).
The ‘whatsit’ was located using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) interferometer at the ALMA Observatory in Chile, known for its high-resolution imaging capabilities. This array uses as many as 66 telescopes to detect the sources of electromagnetic radiation coming from space at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths.
While investigating the Galactic Center, the researchers encountered radiation coming from a source they called “G0.02467–0.0727.” To classify the object, they delved into the properties of a known set of astronomical objects, but found that none of them matched the strange object they had found. Given the mass of dust, the researchers concluded that the energy in the gas was very high. They called it ‘weird dust’. Since they didn’t know if the dust was protostellar, they thought it might be the dust from a supernova. But the properties of the object showed otherwise.
“We have demonstrated the existence of a dusty source with a wide linewidth that can only be detected at millimeter wavelengths. Given this limited information, we now attempt to classify the object. We are considering many options,” the researchers wrote in the study. “Plausible mechanisms include protostellar outflow, explosive outflow, protostellar inflow, ejection from an evolved star, planetary nebula, stellar collision, high-velocity compact cloud (HVCC), intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH), galaxy, or supernova. We evaluate each of these hypotheses in the following sections, but find that none satisfactorily explains the data.”
They also took into account the star formation phenomenon common in the Galactic Center. Star-forming regions are also naturally rich in dust and molecules. They also worked on the hypothesis that the object could be some kind of “evolved star,” such as an asymptotic giant branch or a red supergiant star with an extreme wind. But because this object had no infrared source, it could not be comparable. to these stars.
But there could be another possibility. The researchers further considered the possibility that it could be such a star and that it was hidden beneath a dense burst of dust like that of Betelguese’s Great Dimming. But then they tried that the high column density required for this mechanism to completely block the star’s infrared light would still make MUBLO unique.
Whether the object could be a planetary nebula was highly unlikely, as there was no trace of ionized gas. The object’s chemistry also proved that it was not a black hole or a background galaxy. After analyzing all possible classifications for this object, they concluded their research and wrote: “Future mid-infrared and millimeter observations will be needed to determine what this object is.” The team stated that “MUBLO is currently an observationally unique object.” The object is a metaphor pointing to the fact that there are still many mysteries lurking in the rift of space, waiting to be unfolded.