A series of irregular, super-powerful flares in space are baffling astronomers

Scientists have once again recorded the mysterious cosmic phenomenon LFBOT, a bright and rapid blue optical transition. All LFBOT events observed so far have been accompanied by bright flashes and rapid decay, but the AT2022tsd event recorded in September 2022 consisted of a series of irregular 14 flashes of varying intensity. This marked the beginning of the observation. Something a billion light years away burned for a long time and exploded.

The LFBOT AT2022tsd event was nicknamed the ‘Tasmanian Devil’ due to its unpredictability. The LFBOT phenomenon was first recorded in his 2018 year. Something far away in space caused a huge release of energy that appeared blue in the optical range, and its brightness decreased very quickly. All supernova explosions observed so far lasted significantly longer, forcing us to accept that other processes exist in the universe. The AT2022tsd event was truly unique and added more mystery to LFBOT (Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients). Within 120 days of the first recorded outbreak, 14 more outbreaks followed at irregular intervals. Additionally, some of the subsequent flares were brighter than the previous ones. Of course, scientists have some hypotheses about what happened in the case of LFBOT AT2022tsd. It is very likely that you will actually see a supernova explode into a black hole or neutron star. His corpse was left in place of the once shining star. Although much smaller, it had its own strange properties.

“Surprisingly, the light source continued to brighten briefly, rather than steadily dimming as expected,” said lead author Anna Ho, an assistant professor at Cornell University. “That’s already kind of a strange and exotic event, but this was even stranger.” The dominant version remains an unsuccessful supernova explosion, as reported in a study dedicated to this study published in the journal Nature. Just before the explosion, the star turned into a black hole or neutron star. The original star, which had about 20 solar masses, burned up all its fuel and collapsed without exploding. Moreover, its unique source could be an intermediate-mass black hole that absorbs stars. In any case, scientists have data to expand previously proposed models of the behavior of neutron stars, black holes and supernovae, as well as to more fully describe the evolution of the remains of stars after their death.

source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06673-6