C’is a phenomenon that scientists do not yet manage to explain. A spatial explosion of a particular nature was observed in 2018, at 200 million light years, reports the BBC, this Sunday, May 4. This crash has gained in light intensity at full speed, much more than what we could expect for a classic star explosion – a supernova – before disappearing. Named AT2018Cow, this amazing explosion – which was roughly the same size as our solar system – was quickly nicknamed “the cow”.
Since then, astronomers have detected a handful of other similar events. They are described as “fast blue optical transients” (LFBOTS). The letter L refers to their brightness while their blue color results from the extraordinarily high temperature of the explosion, of around 40,000 degrees Celsius. The o and the t of the acronym, themselves, refer to the fact that these events appear in the spectrum of visible light (optics) and that they are short (transient).
A crucial index on dark matter
Scientists first thought that the LFBots were stars that would have tried to explode before imploding, forming a black hole in their hearts, which would then have consumed them from the inside. But another theory is gradually gaining ground: these eruptions could occur when an unknown class of medium -sized black holes, or black holes of M […] Read more
