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- Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have detected an explosion that defies their expectations.
- The event was the collision of two neutron stars, or at least that’s what astronomers first believed.
- More research may be needed before we can understand what really happened.
There are all kinds of interesting things happening in space at any given time. Asteroids collide with planets, stars are being born while others are dying and black holes continue to suck in everything that comes close. It is rare, however, that astronomers are surprised by an explosion in the cosmos, as we have a fairly clear idea of the type of explosions that different objects produce.
So when the researchers who sifted through the data from the Hubble Space Telescope took a look at a distant “kilonova” explosion and saw near-infrared radiation that was many times what it should be, they were left scratching their heads.
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So what is a kilonova anyway? You already know what a supernova is – the violent death of a star that collapses in on itself and then explodes – but a kilonova is something entirely different. A kilonova is the result of an incredibly dense pair of neutron stars crashing into each other, releasing so much energy that “the collision briefly shines 100 million times brighter than our Sun,” according to NASA.
When two huge gravitational wells like neutron stars collide, they typically produce a black hole, but Hubble observations of a recent kilonova explosion have spotted something that scientists say shouldn’t be there. It was a massive burst of infrared radiation – or heat, as we see it – that didn’t fit with what scientists thought they knew about such collisions.
“These observations don’t fit traditional explanations for short gamma-ray bursts,” Wen-fai Fong, lead author of the study, said in a statement. “Given what we know about the radio and X-rays of this explosion, it just doesn’t match. The near-infrared emission we’re seeing with Hubble is too bright. In terms of trying to fit the puzzle pieces of this gamma-ray burst, one piece of the puzzle doesn’t fit properly. “
The researchers note that if Hubble hadn’t observed the explosion, they would never have been able to detect the infrared explosion, so they’re not quite sure what to do with it.
“As the data was arriving, we were forming an image of the mechanism that produced the light we were seeing,” explains Tanmoy Laskar, co-investigator of the study. “When we got the Hubble observations, we had to completely change our thinking process, because the information added by Hubble made us realize that we had to discard our conventional thinking and that a new phenomenon was underway. Then we had to figure out what it meant for the physics behind these extremely energetic explosions. “
The researchers say it’s possible that the neutron stars involved in this collision may have formed a different object called a magnetar. A magnetar is a particularly large neutron star with a strong magnetic field. A magnetar involved in the bizarre event could explain the strange readings, but they can’t know for sure without further observations and data collection that could take years to even show up.
Mike Wehner has been reporting on technology and video games for the past decade, covering the latest news and trends in VR, wearables, smartphones and the technology of the future. Most recently, Mike worked as a Tech Editor at The Daily Dot and has appeared on USA Today, Time.com, and countless other websites and in print. His love of the news is second only to his addiction to games.
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