Astronomers have discovered a cosmic ‘Tasmanian devil’. This is a new representative of a family of optical extragalactic transients with unusual properties explained by the formation process of matter-accumulating magnetars or black holes. This paper was published in the journal Nature. In 2018, the anomalous optical transient AT2018cow, informally called the “cow”, was discovered, creating a group of small and unusual extragalactic transients that are part of the FBOT (Fast Optical Blue Transients) group . It is blue in color and emits bright radio and X-rays. The mechanism by which such a flare phenomenon that lasts for several days is different from that of a supernova, and is thought to involve a long-lived energy source such as a compact celestial body.

A team of astronomers led by Anna Y. Q. Ho of Cornell University has reported the discovery of a new member of the “cow-like” ephemeral body called AT2022tsd (“Tasmanian Devil”). The star was discovered on September 7, 2022 using the ZTF ground-based telescope system and subsequently observed by numerous space and ground-based telescopes in different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. This transient event was located at a distance of 6 kparsecs from the center of a star-forming galaxy with a redshift of z = 0.2564 and caused at least 14 multi-minute bursts during the 100-day observation period. The combination of the flare’s red color and high brightness temperature suggests a non-thermal radiation mechanism. The torch also features a very high energy of approximately 1046 to 1047 ergs. Scientists concluded that the explosion could be explained by a quasi-relativistic flow of matter associated with a compact object. It could be a newborn magnetized neutron star or a stellar-mass black hole, or the accretion disk could have formed by the tidal collapse of a star by a neutron star, a stellar-mass black hole, or an intermediate-mass black hole. there is. hole. mass black hole.

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