It was much stronger and much faster than normal, and we still do not know the origin: scientists wonder about a mysterious space explosion
In space everything happens. Stars are born and die, galaxies merge – yes, even ours – and huge black holes suck up entire worlds. Scientists are doubtful about many of these events: it happens also for this giant explosion that remains a mystery.
The huge mysterious explosion
At 200 million light years from us, in the galaxy CGCG 137-068, a star exploded, which has been given the name “The Cow”. Bizarre name aside, it could be any event in the everyday life of our universe.
And instead this stellar explosion is very special, because it was ten times more powerful than that of any supernova, lasted much less, produced a light of a different color, and then disappeared into thin air.
Usually a supernova explodes for a month or two, and takes a couple more to disappear completely, while The Cow did it in a week and less than a month, respectively.
Scientists’ theories
On this explosion, scientists have few certainties: one of them, is that there must have been a source of additional energy.
Scientists have therefore made two hypotheses: the first is the core of the star collapsed and formed a rotating neutron star with a very strong magnetic field – a process similar to what happens with supernovae. The very fast rotation could be the source of energy the scientists were looking for.
The second hypothesis is a collision between two white dwarfs, or a black hole sucking in a white dwarf. Dheeraj Pasham, an MIT researcher who led this study, explained that, “The Cow could have been the result of an intermediate-mass black hole, between 10 thousand and 100 thousand solar masses in size, ripping apart a star.”
All of the hypotheses presented come with flaws. For the first, the X-ray signal should have slowed down over the previous 60 days, but it didn’t. For the second, that kind of stability for a black hole is very hard to believe.
There are other hypotheses: for example, that the explosion was so gigantic because there was other matter around the star that increased the impact.
According to initial findings, the object born from The Cow’s explosion could be a neutron deposit or a black hole – but it’s still too early to tell.