Strange "ice balls" discovered in space: scientists are confused because they have never seen anything like it

In a remote part of the Milky Way, scientists have spotted strange "ice balls" that have puzzled them. These objects are unlike anything scientists have seen before and may even be a completely new type of star.

These orbs were first discovered by Japanese researchers in 2021, but only now telescope observations confirmed how strange they are. According to a new study, the light coming from these distant objects is not consistent with any of the existing theories of star formation, MailOnline writes.

The newly discovered "ice balls" resemble dense gas clouds or newly formed stars. But they are completely isolated from the areas where stars usually form. However, even though they emit infrared light like a star, this is not consistent with the large amount of ice that surrounds them. What's even stranger is that the only two samples found are located very close to each other in the sky.

"We have tried our best to reproduce the properties, but so far we cannot find any theory that can explain the properties of the spectral energy," says lead researcher Dr. Takashi Shimonishi of Niigata University in Japan, adding that when he first spotted them, he immediately realized they were extremely strange.

The objects were spotted using Japan's AKARI space telescope, which scanned the Milky Way in the infrared spectrum. This showed that although the objects were close to each other in the sky, they were far enough apart to not be related.

Although Dr. Shimonishi's initial observations showed that these objects were unusual, the space telescope did not have the resolution to see more.

Now, researchers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to look at them again, in hopes of solving this mystery. And even with the largest telescope in existence, these two icy balls are still unlike any other object in the universe.

So this new set of measurements has only raised more questions.

ALMA observations show that the balls are somewhere between 1-10 times larger than our solar system. At first glance, this may seem huge, but it makes the objects relatively small compared to other gas clouds. In addition, the wavelength of the light coming from the object indicates that they are composed of carbon monoxide and silicon dioxide.

It is a large amount of silicon compared to the amount of carbon which could indicate that this is a young star that is rapidly spewing out new material. However, Dr. Shimonishi says that the objects' small size, high ice content, and isolation are not consistent with any other type of star known to science. Therefore, the researchers suggest that they may have found a previously unknown type of object.

Dr. Shimonishi and his colleagues have applied to use the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to collect new data on these strange objects. These observations will help resolve the question of whether these ice balls are consistent with existing theories of star formation or not.

"JWST is very sensitive and has high spectral resolution, so we can do very detailed analysis of the ice or dust, which can help us understand the thermal history of the source," explained Dr. Shimonishi.

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