Astronomers were successful in detecting the largest cosmic explosion to ever be witnessed. Read to know more about a spectacular event that took place eight billion years away.
Astronomers detect the largest cosmic explosion
Cosmic explosion AT2021lwx was first detected in California’s Zwicky Transient Facility in 2020. The facility scans the night sky for impulsive increases in brightness for spotting cosmic events such as supernovas, passing asteroids, and comets. In addition to it, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) located in Hawaii also picked up the signal.
As per, Dr. Phillip Wiseman, the event “went unnoticed for a year as it gradually got brighter”. Dr. Wiseman is an astronomer at Southampton University and led the study. Follow-up observation revealed the enormity and location of the explosion. The study revealed that “it could be that these events, although extremely rare, are so energetic that they are key processes to how the centers of galaxies change over time.”
More on the celestial event
Astronomers revealed that the fireball is expected to be about two trillion times brighter than the Sun and 100 times the size of our solar system. They believe the explosion could be due to a large cloud falling into a black hole. “Once we understood how extremely bright it was. We had to come up with a way to explain it,” stated Dr. Wiseman. According to the report, in three years the cosmic explosion released “100 times as much energy as the Sun will in its 10 billion-year lifetime”.
“Most supernovae and TDEs only last for a couple of months before fading away. For something to be bright for two-plus years was immediately very unusual,” explained Dr. Wiseman. “With new facilities, like the Vera Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time, coming online in the next few years, we are hoping to discover more events like this and learn more about them,” he added.