Zap // from the-e-2
Illustrative image of an ice star.
Imphaste balls detected by Japanese astronomers may represent a new type of star. “It’s a fascinating job, though quite intriguing.”
Two mysterious – and ice cream – objects detected in our galaxy are intriguing astronomers, who believe they have found a new type of star.
These bodies, initially detected in 2021 by TAKASHI SHIMONISHI Together with their University of Niigata team, they challenge traditional classification and existing theories about the formation and composition of the stars.
Discovered with data from the Japanese space telescope AKARIthe objects appeared as cold gas balls in the same region of the sky, but were not related due to their separation.
Its properties suggested that it could be dense gas clouds or young stars, but their isolation from the stellar formation regions intrigued the team: Akari infrared exams were not resolution enough to identify the accurate characteristics of objects, which led to a deeper investigation.
“We have tried our best to reproduce the properties, but today we have not been able to find any theory that can explain the properties of the spectral energy,” Shimishi tells.
To unravel the mystery, the Japanese expert team used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. But who would say: high resolution observations only deepened the riddle.
The objects, composed of carbon monoxide and silicon monoxide, are relatively small – between the size of our solar system and ten times larger. THE high content of silicontypically associated with explosive cosmic events, such as the ejection of material by young stars, conflict with its cold, cold nature and its isolated location.
“It’s a fascinating, although quite intriguing work,” says Jane Greaves at the University of Cardiff about the study on January 9 at Arxiv: “The two objects seem to have contradictory characteristics, being cold enough for abundant ice, but also infrared emissions like a star. ”
One possibility is that it is a new kind of star, but their unique characteristics raise other issues. Greaves underlines the need for more data to clarify to what extent objects are similar to each other.
Thomas Haworth, from Queen Mary University of London, points out the unusual coincidence of finding only two objects of this type very close, but at very different distances.
“It is a little strange that two of these objects have only been found and that they are both very close to each other in the sky, although at very different distances,” says the British.
To solve these mysteries, Shimishi’s team applied for time to observe with the James Webb (JWST) space telescope. High sensitivity and spectral resolution of the telescope will be able to provide detailed analyzes of the icy and dusty compositions of objects, shedding light on their thermal origins and stories.
