Nearby hypervelocity brown dwarf discovered

[selden]

I've seen several articles recently which mention that the citizen-survey project "Backyard Worlds: Planet 9" has discovered a nearby (~400 LY) brown dwarf which is headed toward the galactic center at greater than the Milky Way's escape velocity.

The initial pre-publication article seems to be

Discovery of a Hypervelocity L Subdwarf at the Star/Brown Dwarf Mass Limit
by Adam J. Burgasser et al.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.08578

Its origin is unknown and still being researched.

Might this actually be an advanced non-human expedition sent to explore the galactic center?

I'm sure it'd be the object of expeditions sent by OA polities.

[stevebowers]

400 light years away, give or take.
Is this an extragalactic interloper?

[AstroChara]

Might this actually be an advanced non-human expedition sent to explore the galactic center?

A fun thought, but in case you're actually thinking about writing this in EG, I figured I'd like to state my opinion on this topic: I do not want us to be assigning xenosophont explanations to real objects whose status is not clear, because it's basically a given that a non-xenosophont explanation will be given and we will basically have to erase our work.

[stevebowers]

This brown dwarf might have a few interesting artifacts in orbit around it, especially if it comes from a satellite galaxy. However there are numerous stars in the Terragen Sphere which have extragalactic origins, so this is not a particularly unusual characteristic.

Travelling towards the Galactic Center is unusual, however. I should note that a brown dwarf is a particularly massive and inconvenient object to use as an expedition vehicle.

[Rakuen07]

I agree with the Astronomer. This brown dwarf should just be a stray astronomical body who just so happen to have a convenient route towards the center of the galaxy. However, even then I think that the Terragens would take an interest in such a object and send expeditions there. In OA it is known that there is a HEEC around the center of the galaxy and, while it would be inconvenient to reroute the brown dwarf, it is massive enough to be able to host one S4 archailect (who perhaps could be the Terragen's emissary) and several more sophonts and transapients. So, even if the object isn't originally a expedition vehicle it could be turned so by the Terragens. Thoughts?

[AstroChara]

I agree with the Astronomer. This brown dwarf should just be a stray astronomical body who just so happen to have a convenient route towards the center of the galaxy. However, even then I think that the Terragens would take an interest in such a object and send expeditions there. In OA it is known that there is a HEEC around the center of the  galaxy and, while it would be inconvenient to reroute the brown dwarf, it is massive enough to be able to host one S4 archailect (who perhaps could be the Terragen's emissary) and several more sophonts and transapients. So, even if the object isn't originally a expedition vehicle it could be turned so by the Terragens. Thoughts?

Yeah, I think this is a good idea. Note that many of the likely natural formation methods are fairly extreme in nature and may deprive it of any major satellite, so it would likely start off as a rather unattractive colonisation target, but I'll read more.

[Drashner1]

While it's interesting that this object is moving at the speed it is, this begs the question of just how fast it is moving and how long it would take it to reach galactic center or its environs. If it's still going to take millions of years or longer than it's largely irrelevant as is unless Terragens are going to speed it up to something useful. And for the energy involved in doing that you could likely send an entire fleet of smaller ships, probably with less overall effort.

Todd

[stevebowers]

This object moves at 456 km/s, about twice as fast times as fast as the Sun moves in its orbit. But it is not in an orbit if it is moving directly towards the centre of the Galaxy. Assuming it doesn't hit anything, the star will go straight out the other side of the galaxy and disappear into intergalactic space.