NASA credits citizen scientists for finding mysterious object speeding out of Milky Way at 1 million miles per hour

It is moving so fast that it will escape the Milky Way¡¯s gravity and shoot into intergalactic space¡ªthis is how NASA has described a newly discovered, unidentified object in space. And what makes the discovery even more impressive is that it wasn't even found by NASA's top scientists using the state-of-the-art technology the space agency has.

CREDIT: NASA

Who are NASA citizen scientists

According to NASA, the discovery was made by a group of citizen scientists, who are amateur space enthusiasts working as volunteers with the space agency.

NASA currently has 29 projects that are open to everyone around the world, in which citizen science or participatory science can work with them. NASA said such volunteers and amateurs have helped make thousands of important scientific discoveries in the past.

What citizen scientist found

One such group, who were working on NASA¡¯s Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project, has helped discover the mysterious fast-moving object.

CREDIT: NASA

The citizen scientists¡¯ team of Martin Kabatnik, Thomas P. Bickle, and Dan Caselden were using images from NASA¡¯s Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE) mission, which mapped the sky in infrared light from 2009 to 2011 when they spotted a faint, fast-moving object called CWISE J124909.08+362116.0, marching across their screens.

Follow-up observations with several ground-based telescopes helped scientists confirm the discovery and characterise the object.

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Moving at 1 million miles per hour

According to NASA, CWISE J1249 is zooming out of the Milky Way at about 1 million miles per hour. What makes CWISE J1249 different is its low mass, which makes it difficult to classify as a celestial object.

CREDIT: NASA

Could be one of the oldest stars ever

Scientists believe that the mysterious object could be a low-mass star, or if it doesn¡¯t steadily fuse hydrogen in its core, it would be considered a brown dwarf, putting it somewhere between a gas giant planet and a star.

Further studies have only highlighted the significance of the discovery made by the amateur scientists. Data obtained with the W.M. Keck Observatory in Maunakea, Hawaii, show that it has much less iron and other metals than other stars and brown dwarfs. This unusual composition suggests that CWISE J1249 is quite old, likely from one of the first generations of stars in our galaxy.

¡°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,¡± Kabatnik, a citizen scientist from Nuremberg, Germany, who was part of the team, said.

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