The Milky Way is still full of surprises (Picture: Getty)
A mysterious object at the centre of our galaxy is firing out microwaves and bamboozling astronomers.
Scientists from the US and Europe have been studying the object, and came to the conclusion that it isn’t like anything else ever seen in the Milky Way.
Sadly however, it probably isn’t a Dyson sphere or other alien creation.
The microwaves suggest it contains a mix of ‘weird’ dust and fast-moving gas, travelling at around 112,000 miles an hour.
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (Alma) observatory in Chile, the team have been peeking into the middle of the Milky Way to uncover its secrets.
Writing in Astrophysical Journal Letters, they said: ‘The centre of our galaxy contains billions of stars, tens of millions of solar masses of gas, a supermassive black hole, a tenth of our galaxy’s ongoing star formation, and an extensive graveyard of stellar remnants.
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (Alma) observatory in Chile (Picture: Reuters)
‘It is therefore the likeliest place to find new classes of objects.’
After discovering the object, named G0.02467–0.0727, they compared it to other known objects in the galaxy.
‘We consider several explanations for the Millimeter Ultra-Broad Line Object (Mublo), including protostellar outflow, explosive outflow, collapsing cloud, evolved star, stellar merger, high-velocity compact cloud, intermediate mass black hole, and background galaxy,’ the team wrote.
However, nothing that has been seen before was a match.
The mystery object (Picture: A Ginsburg et al.)
‘Most of these conceptual models are either inconsistent with the data or do not fully explain it,’ they wrote.
The object sits in what is known as the central molecular zone (CMZ), home to the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.
Interestingly, the temperature of the gas around the object is also much lower than elsewhere in the region, at around -260C.
The Milky Way, our home galaxy (artist’s impression) (Picture: Getty/Science Photo Libra)
The continuous radiation detected appears to come from the dust, emitting specific signals that indicate the presence of carbon monosulphide and sulphur monoxide – which has been detected around Jupiter’s moon Io.
While the team said the most likely explanation was a stellar merger or an intermediate-mass black hole, they could not say it was either one.
‘There are no exact analogs to the MUBLO among known astronomical objects,’ they said. ‘Most of these conceptual models are either inconsistent with the data or do not fully explain them.
‘The Mublo is, at present, an observationally unique object.’