An international team of astronomers has discovered one of the most powerful and long-playing cosmic flares that occurred inside a galaxy in the constellation Vulpecula at a distance of eight billion light-years from Earth.
This was reported in the press service of the University of Southampton in the UK. The outbreak has been going on for more than two years, scientists say.
The discovery was made while analyzing data using an algorithm that aims to find certain types of supernovae. Most of these outbursts last only a few months, but T2021lwx has maintained its high brightness for more than two years.
An open flash had a record energy for all space objects, except for active quasaurs and supermassive black holes at the centers of active galaxies. Scientists estimate that the resulting fireball was 100 times the size of the solar system and two trillion times brighter than the sun.
According to astronomers, in three years the explosion released 100 times more energy than the Sun releases in 10 billion years. Note that the AT2021lwx flare was detected in April 2021 by the robotic telescope of the ZTF project.
Initially, scientists thought that it was formed as a result of the explosion of one of the rare subtypes of supernovae of the second type (IIn). However, now researchers are inclined to believe that such a phenomenon happened due to a huge cloud of fairly dense gas, which was torn apart by the attraction of a supermassive black hole. TASS with reference to the Guardian.
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