Astronomers spot the biggest cosmic explosion EVER – and they have no idea where it even came from
ASTRONOMERS stunned by what appears to be the largest explosion ever recorded in space.
You have no idea where or where it came from.
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It was more than 10 times brighter than any known supernova and three times brighter than the brightest tidal event where a star falls into a supermassive black hole.
The explosion, known as AT2021lwx, has been going on for more than three years and is brighter than almost anything ever seen, according to scientists from the University of Southampton in the UK.
However, scientists believe that the explosion first took place when the universe was about six billion years old.
Astronomers have pinpointed its location at a distance of almost 8 billion years.
dr Philip Wiseman, a research associate at the University of Southampton who led the research, said: “We happened upon this because it was detected by our search algorithm when we were looking for some kind of supernova.”
“Most supernovae and tidal disturbances only last a few months before disappearing again.
“To have had light for a little over two years was immediately very unusual.”
Although there’s no concrete evidence as to what caused the eruption, scientists have an idea.
The most plausible explanation is that it may be a giant cloud of gas larger than our sun that was ripped apart by a supermassive black hole.
Although the violent movement of a black hole has never triggered such an eruption, according to human records.
“As new facilities like the Vera Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time come online over the next few years, we hope to discover and learn more about more events like these,” Wiseman added.
“It could be that these events, while exceedingly rare, are so energetic that they are key processes in how the centers of galaxies change over time.”
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