Mysterious object called ‘The Accident’ soaring across the Milky Way

NASA shares how a mysterious object known as ‘The Accident’ has been soaring across the Milky Way galaxy for the past 10 billion years.

The universe is an enormous span of space that encompasses everything that exists. All galaxies, stars, and planets can be found in the universe.

According to scientists, the universe’s actual size is a mystery and is still expanding. There are billions of galaxies in the cosmos, and our Milky Way Galaxy is one among them.

The Milky Way Galaxy, which contains our Solar System and a slew of other stars, also contains unusual cosmic objects that are neither stars nor planets.

Scientists have discovered one such mysterious object known as ‘The Accident’ which has been soaring across the Milky Way galaxy for the past 10 billion years.

According to NASA, ‘The Accident’ is a failed star with insufficient mass to initiate nuclear fusion in its core. Dan Caselden, a NASA scientist, discovered it by chance, hence the object’s name ‘The Accident’, comes from its accidental finding.

Scientists were mystified when they discovered ‘The Accident’; it didn’t appear to be a regular brown dwarf. The object was weak in some infrared wavelengths, indicating a very cold and ancient brown dwarf, but bright in others, indicating a warm, young brown dwarf.

So far, our galaxy has yielded around 2,000 brown dwarfs. ‘The Accident’ , on the other hand, has nothing in common with any of them.

Astronomers have taken the first close look at ‘The Accident’, a mystery Milky Way object that is considerably more mysterious than earlier investigations suggested. It’s neither a star nor a planet, yet it’s soaring across the Milky Way, much closer than we believed.

According to NASA brown dwarfs cool as they age, and their brightness fluctuates in different wavelengths of light. But scientists were confused by ‘The Accident’ since it was weak in certain crucial wavelengths, implying that it was very cold, but bright in others, implying a higher temperature. The calamity is enormous – it’s nearly 80 times the size of Jupiter. The surface temperature is the next factor to consider. It will take millions of years for ‘The Accident’ to cool down completely.

The atmosphere of ‘The Accident’ is equally confusing. Methane is a common gas in brown dwarfs with similar temperatures to ‘The Accident’ . Astronomers conclude, ‘The Accident’ is low on methane because of the wavelengths of infrared light it produces. A methane scarcity suggests the object formed 10 to 13 billion years ago, when the Milky Way was almost totally filled with hydrogen and helium but no carbon.

According to the scientists, ‘The Accident’ is very old and has been jostled around for billions of years by the gravity of larger things, which has accelerated its movement. ‘The Accident’ which is around 50 light-years from Earth, travels through our galaxy at a speed of about 500,000 mph (800,000 km/h), significantly quicker than a regular brown dwarf.

All of data points to ‘The Accident’ being an extremely cold and old brown dwarf that formed when the galaxy was deficient in methane, giving it a lifespan more than twice that of all other known brown dwarfs.

The vibe of the thing is equally mysterious and it’s moving at a fast pace.