Astronomers working at the Atacama Large Millimeter Array radio telescope complex in Chile have discovered a strange object at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy that ‘defies all definition’. The astronomers’ work was published in the scientific journal Astrophysical diary letters.
The object was found to be emitting microwaves, leading to the conclusion that it was probably dust and gas traveling at about 110,000 miles per hour.
Astronomers looked at several theories about what this object could be, from a black hole to a collapsing cloud to an evolved star, but no version matched the characteristics of this mysterious object.
In general, it turned out that no type of known astronomical body is suitable for identifying the detected object.
“The center of our Milky Way contains billions of stars, tens of millions of solar masses of gas, a supermassive black hole, a tenth of our Milky Way’s ongoing star formation, and a vast graveyard of stellar remains. Therefore, it is the most likely place to discover new classes of objects. In this work we present such an object,” write the authors of the discovery.
“We considered several explanations for MUBLO, including protostellar outflow, explosive outflow, collapsing cloud, evolved star, stellar merger, high-velocity compact cloud, intermediate-mass black hole, and background galaxy. Most of these conceptual models do not fit or fully explain the data.”
The object was discovered while the team was studying a special region at the center of the Milky Way known as the central molecular zone (CMZ). This zone, about 700 light-years wide, contains almost 80% of all the dense gas in the Milky Way and is home to giant molecular clouds and massive star-forming clusters that remain poorly understood.
The temperature of the gas inside the object was about -260 degrees Celsius (-436 degrees Fahrenheit), much colder than what is typically observed in this part of the Milky Way.
MUBLO’s characteristics were the closest to an intermediate-mass black hole, but still very different. “MUBLO is currently a unique object to observe,” the team ultimately said.
