Mysterious Object Discovered Speeding at Over 1 Million MPH Across the Galaxy – Scientists Stumped
This artist's concept shows a hypothetical white dwarf, left, that has exploded as a supernova. The object at right is CWISE J1249, a star or brown dwarf ejected from this system as a result of the explosion. This scenario is one explanation for where CWISE J1249 came from. (W.M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko)
An extraordinary object is speeding through space at a staggering 1 million miles per hour (1.6 million km/h), fast enough to eventually escape the Milky Way galaxy. Known as CWISE J1249, this enigmatic celestial body has left scientists both intrigued and baffled.
This discovery marks the first time an object of its mass has been observed traveling at such a phenomenal speed. By comparison, our solar system moves at about 450,000 mph—making CWISE J1249 more than twice as fast.
What Is CWISE J1249?
A mosCWISE J1249 is a star-like object with a mass approximately 30,000 times that of Earth, or 8% of the Sun's mass. It falls somewhere between a low-mass star and a brown dwarf, a category of objects that are larger than gas giants but too small to sustain nuclear fusion like regular stars.
Interestingly, data collected from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii revealed that CWISE J1249 contains far less iron and other metals than typical stars or brown dwarfs. This suggests it may be an ancient relic—potentially from the first generation of stars that formed in our galaxy billions of years ago.
Discovery by Citizen Scientists
The high-speed object was identified by three amateur scientists—Martin Kabatnik, Thomas P. Bickle, and Dan Caselden —as part of NASA’s Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project. The volunteers analyzed infrared images from NASA’s WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) mission, which originally mapped the sky from 2009 to 2011.
When Kabatnik first observed the object’s rapid movement, he was astonished. "I can’t describe the level of excitement. When I first saw how fast it was moving, I was convinced it must have been reported already,” he said.
Their findings, now co-authored in a paper published in the *Astrophysical Journal Letters*, represent a significant milestone for citizen science efforts.
Why Is It Moving So Fast?
Scientists are still working to determine the cause of CWISE J1249’s incredible speed. Two leading theories have emerged:
1. A Binary System Gone Wrong: The object might have been part of a binary star system. Its companion, a white dwarf, may have exploded in a supernova after pulling material from CWISE J1249, flinging it into space at extreme speeds.
2. A Gravitational Slingshot Event: CWISE J1249 could have originated in a globular cluster, a dense grouping of stars. A close encounter with a pair of black holes may have acted as a gravitational slingshot, accelerating the object to its current velocity.
Dr. Darren Baskill, an astronomy lecturer at the University of Sussex, compared the phenomenon to how space probes are accelerated. “One way to reach such extreme speeds is to fall towards an object and miss,” Baskill explained. “This same technique could explain the speed of CWISE J1249—it may have fallen towards a massive object at the galactic center, missed it, and was slingshotted out at incredible speeds.”
A Rare Phenomenon
Rapidly moving stars and star-like objects are exceptionally rare. Dr. Baskill notes, “Locally, only one or two stars out of every thousand are moving at such speeds.” If it continues at its current pace, CWISE J1249 could leave the Milky Way in just tens of millions of years —a mere blink of an eye in cosmic terms, given that stars typically live for billions of years.
What’s Next?
The scientific community plans to study CWISE J1249 further to unlock more mysteries about its origins and velocity. This discovery not only deepens our understanding of hypervelocity objects but also provides insight into the dynamics of our galaxy and its earliest generations of stars.