Using images from a NASA telescope, three amateur citizen scientists discovered a star-like object hurtling through space.
This freak of nature, traveling about one million mph, will escape the clutch of the Milky Way and head off into intergalactic space. It's the first time anyone has found something this massive at that incredible speed.
"I can’t describe the level of excitement," said Martin Kabatnik, one of the discoverers, in a statement. "When I first saw how fast it was moving, I was convinced it must have been reported already."
Scientists have determined that it is not a comet or an asteroid, but think it may be a low-mass star or a brown dwarf, an object that is not quite a star or a gas giant planet like Jupiter, but something else in between.
This object, dubbed CWISE J1249, is unusual because it's about to escape into intergalactic space. And it has one other weird trait: The object has much less iron and other metals typically found in stars and brown dwarfs - suggesting CWISE J1249 is so ancient, it could be among the first generation of stars birthed in the galaxy.
Scientists will continue to look for clues about the root cause of its phenomenal speed.