In the century or so since Edwin Hubble discovered that the Milky Way is just one of countless galaxies in the universe, our understanding of our home galaxy has grown in leaps and bounds. But as recent research into a new type of cosmic object shows, there's still plenty left to learn.
In 2021, astronomers accidentally discovered two unusual, compact bodies composed primarily of ice during their exploration of our galaxy’s disk using Japan's AKARI satellite. Upon further examination, these celestial entities were identified as being comprised of interstellar ice (which includes both water ice and organic compounds) along with dust particles. follow-up study recently published in The Astrophysical Journal found that these dirty snowballs don't fall into any known category. It's unclear what exactly they are and how they could have formed.
“They may represent a new class of interstellar objects that provide an environment conducive to the formation of ices and organic molecules,” Takashi Shimonishi, an astronomer at Niigata University, Japan, who led the study, said in a press releas e.
Organic molecules serve as the foundational components of life. Up until this point, researchers believed these compounds mainly originated in thick molecular clouds—sites where stars come into being—or near nascent stars within protoplanetary discs. However, these newly discovered entities do not align with either scenario. The detection of organic materials in an unanticipated setting reshapes our comprehension of when and where intricate chemical reactions may occur.
Identity: Unknown
Frigid space rocks typically have a cloud of dust around them. However, when Shimonishi and his colleagues used the Atacame Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile for their observations, they did not detect this usual luminescence.
The radio emissions from these objects revealed an unexpectedly high amount of silicon monoxide compared to what would typically be found in molecular gas. This suggests significant hidden events occurring, as silicon monoxide generally gets incorporated into dust particles. The researchers believe that such substantial visibility could indicate a potent energy source affecting the surrounding gas near these enigmatic entities.
When identifying the potential nature of these objects, researchers have eliminated several possibilities. At first glance, their characteristics appeared similar to those of newborn stars enveloped within the vast gas and dust clouds where they were born—known as embedded young stellar objects—or like stars observed behind opaque dust clouds. However, neither object resides in an area known for star formation; moreover, the two sources do not share physical proximity even though they seem closely positioned in the night sky—they sit at different distances of 30,000 and 40,000 light-years respectively—and importantly, there isn’t any dust cloud obscuring them from view.
Carbon monoxide clouds envelop each origin point; however, these clouds are traveling at varying velocities, leading researchers to believe they are not connected. These celestial entities seem to wander through the vastness of space in isolation, with each one being a surprising carrier of life’s potential building blocks.
Seeds of life
A number of researchers believe that life on our planet might have originated due to organic compounds arriving from outer space, transported possibly through comets or meteoroids. Should these frozen celestial bodies present an unexplored environment for chemical reactions involving organic matter, they could potentially reveal insights into the ubiquity of life's building blocks throughout the universe.
However, what exactly are these entities? Might they be remnants of some undiscovered interstellar phenomenon? Are they ordinary objects acting oddly because of unexplained conditions? Upcoming observations might uncover the real identity of these cosmic icebergs, potentially classifying them as a distinct group altogether.
For the moment, these two solitary travelers still remain an enigma.
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