NASA’s citizen scientists discovered CWISE J1249, a strange object speeding the Milky Way at a speed of 16,09,344 kilometres per hour. NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE) mission photos were used to detect the object as it zoomed out of our galaxy.
This hypervelocity object, discovered by citizen scientists from the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project, is travelling so quickly that it will escape the Milky Way’s gravity and enter intergalactic space. It is the first such object with a mass comparable to or less than that of a low-mass star.
Backyard Worlds uses data from NASA’s WISE project, which scanned the sky in infrared light between 2009 and 2011. The mission was relaunched as NEOWISE in 2013 and will be retired on August 8, 2024.
Kabatnik, a scientist from Nuremberg, Germany, showed great enthusiasm when he discovered the object’s quick velocity.
CWISE J1249’s low mass makes it difficult to identify as a celestial object. It could be a low-mass star or, if hydrogen is not continuously fused in its core, a brown dwarf, falling somewhere between a gas giant planet and a star. Further investigation will centre on its elemental composition.
