Mysterious explosion in space leaves scientists stunned
An ultra-flat cosmic blast 180 million light years away is reshaping our understanding of how stars die
It began with a flicker of light. What followed was a discovery that has shaken the very foundations of how astronomers understand cosmic explosions.
Scientists have observed an explosion 180 million light years away that is unlike anything seen before. Rather than forming a typical spherical shape, the blast was flat — so flat that it has become the most aspherical explosion ever recorded in space.
The event belongs to an extremely rare class of explosions called Fast Blue Optical Transients (FBOTs), nicknamed "the cow" by astronomers. Only four such events have ever been observed. This particular FBOT is helping scientists make sense of a mystery that has puzzled them since the first one appeared in 2018.
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Explosions in space, such as supernovas, are expected to be round like the stars they come from. But this FBOT defied that pattern. Within days of discovery, astronomers observed that the explosion had spread out in a disc-like shape. It was as large as our solar system, yet so flat that it baffled researchers.
Dr Justyn Maund of the University of Sheffield, who led the study, said: "Very little is known about FBOT explosions — they just do not behave like exploding stars should. They are too bright and they evolve too quickly. Put simply, they are weird, and this new observation makes them even weirder."
The explosion may have occurred because the star was surrounded by a dense disc or because it was a failed supernova. In such a case, the star's core collapses into a black hole or neutron star and consumes the rest of the star.
Using the Liverpool Telescope in La Palma, scientists caught a flash of polarised light and used it to measure the blast's shape. The data allowed them to reconstruct the explosion in 3D, revealing just how unusually flat it was.
