How MIT scientists explain a space object explosion 100 times brighter than a supernova

The theory is that when the core of a large star collapses, it creates a new super-dense object that could be either a black hole or a neutron star. However, direct observations in search of evidence for this theory are extremely rare.

A team of MIT astronomers so he discovered new evidence by observing the AT2018cow explosion. The Cow, as it was named, was detected on June 16, 2018. It was extremely short and extremely bright, 100 times brighter than an ordinary supernova. In fact, it was so bright that scientists initially thought it came from our own galaxy and were surprised to find that it came from a galaxy 200 million light-years away.

The emitted X-ray emissions were detected by the NICER telescope and astronomers noticed that they have a very stable pulse with a period of 4.4 milliseconds. Combining the time period with the fact that information can not travel faster than the speed of light, they concluded that there must be an ultra-dense object in the heart of The Cow.

The bottom line is that we witnessed the birth of an ultra-dense object that interacts with its environment in a way we have never seen before. These observations will help us better understand some of the most extreme phenomena in the universe.

The research was published in Nature Astronomy.

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