“Accident”, the mysterious object discovered in the Milky Way that interests astronomers

This indicates that they formed when our galaxy was very young and had a different chemical composition.

“If this is the case, there are likely to be more ancient brown dwarfs lurking in our galactic region,” Kirkpatrick adds.

Scientist Dan Caselden discovered the “accident,” officially known as WISEA J153429.75-104303.3, by sheer luck, as it bears little resemblance to any other brown dwarf found in the galaxy to date, according to a statement from the space agency.

As brown dwarfs age, they cool and change their luminosity at different wavelengths, just as hot metals change color when they cool.

This object piqued the interest of scientists because its glow is not typical of those seen in other aging brown dwarfs.

It emits faint light at some wavelengths, indicating that such objects are very cold, but at the same time appear more bright elsewhere, indicating that they also have warmer regions.

“It’s no surprise to find such an ancient brown dwarf, but it’s surprising to find one in our backyard,” said Federico Marocco, Davy Kirkpatrick Fellow at Caltech and one of the study’s authors.

“We expected brown dwarfs to exist at this age and we also expected them to be incredibly rare,” says the astrophysicist, who is responsible for directing observations with the Keck and Hubble telescopes.

Using ground-based telescopes at the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the researchers attempted to observe the accident with additional infrared radiation.

But it looked so weak that it could not be detected, confirming that it was very cold and therefore very old.

The researchers estimate that the speed with which it is spinning is further evidence that it has been in the galaxy for a long time, as it pulls on massive objects that cause them to accelerate with gravity.

The accident is located about 50 light-years from Earth and orbits about 800,000 km / h faster than all other brown dwarfs detected at a similar distance from our planet, according to the study.

The study highlighted that another characteristic of the accident was that it contained low levels of methane, compared to most other brown dwarfs found, strengthening the argument that it formed more than 10 billion years ago. At that time, the galaxy was made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, and carbon was not needed to form methane.

Marroquín concludes, “The possibility of finding something this close to the solar system may be a happy coincidence or mean that it is more common than we think.”

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