Astronomers were able to discover a new cosmic explosion class that seamingly outshines almost every supernova ever found.
Luminous Fast Coolers: Brighter Than 100 Billion Suns
Within a span of 10 days, the odd blast was seen to become brighter than 100 billion Suns. However, after a few weeks, it was seen to almost entirely vanish. This destructive event is considerably shorter and more spectacular than usual supernovas.
According to the study where the discovery was reported, this event is a representation of a new cosmic explosion class that was never previously studied.
Astrophysicist Matt Nicholl, who is from Queen's University Belfast and who led the study, explains that they have named the new class as Luminous Fast Coolers (LFC). The data set they generated shows that the explosion is not another kind of supernova.
Supernovas are extremely bright explosions that take place when huge stars consume their nuclear fuel, collapse within, and blast outer gas layers into the cosmos. Hundreds of supernovas are seen to suddenly brighten each year. Afterwards, they become dim.
In most cases, supernovas become brightest after roughly 20 days. In such cases, their brightness is equivalent to that of several billion Suns. As months pass, the explosion gradually fades.
LFCs, however, do not fall under the supernova category. For one, the newly found explosion took place in a galaxy that hosts several Sun-like stars that are too small to pass as the material for supernovas.
Shubham Srivasta, a co-author of the study and research fellow from Queen's University, explains that their data revealed that the event took place in a red and massive galaxy that is situated two billion light-years away. While such galaxies hold billions of Sun-like stars, they should not contain any stars that are large enough to result in supernovas.
Aside from this, the growth of brightness and fading pace of the LFC was observed to be faster compared to usual supernovas. In the next 15 days, the object ended up fading by two magnitude orders, while only 1% of its highest brightness faded just a month post-detonation.
Mysteries to Unravel
To examine if anything like this event took place in the past, the researchers examined archival surveys of telescopes. Doing so enabled them to find two objects from a 2009 and 2020 survey that had similar properties.
Overall, the researchers concluded that this cosmic explosion belonged to a new and rare cosmic class that was unrelated to the death of stars.
However, at present, the team can only speculate the exact nature of LFCs. They will keep on searching for more of these mysterious and odd cosmic explosions in nearby galaxies.
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