Astronomers working with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array radio telescopes in Chile have discovered a strange object in the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, that “does not fit any definitions.”
The astronomers’ work was published in the scientific journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
It was found that the object emits microwaves, leading to the conclusion that it is likely dust and gas moving at about 112,000 miles per hour.
Astronomers considered various theories about what this object could be—from a black hole or a collapsing cloud to an evolved star—but none of these theories matched the characteristics of this mysterious object.
Overall, it turned out that no known type of astronomical object fits the description of the discovered object.
“The center of our galaxy contains billions of stars, tens of millions of solar mass equivalents in gas, a supermassive black hole, a tenth of our galaxy’s ongoing star formation, and an extensive graveyard of stellar remnants. Therefore, it is the most likely place to find new classes of objects. In this work, we present one such object,” the authors wrote.
The object has been given the code designation G0.02467-0.0727 and the abbreviation MUBLO—Millimeter Ultra-Broad Line Object.
“We considered several explanations for the MUBLO, including protostellar outflow, explosive outflow, collapsing cloud, evolved star, star merger, high-velocity compact cloud, intermediate-mass black hole, and background galaxy. Most of these conceptual models either do not align with the data or do not fully explain it.”
The object was discovered when the team was studying a specific area in the center of the Milky Way, known as the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ). This zone, about 700 light-years across, contains nearly 80% of all the dense gas in the galaxy and is home to giant molecular clouds and massive star-forming clusters that are still poorly understood.
Furthermore, the temperature of the gas in the object was about -436 degrees Fahrenheit (-260 degrees Celsius), which is much colder than typically observed in this part of the galaxy.
The characteristics of MUBLO were closest to those of an intermediate-mass black hole, but still differed significantly.
“MUBLO is currently a unique object for observation,” the team concluded.
