Huge, mysterious blast detected in deep space

Powerful bursts of energy can be detected by the astronomer.

Sometimes the source of the bursts is not known.

A blast some 130 million light-years from Earth was observed by scientists. They detected a collision between two collapsed stars that are perhaps the densest objects in the universe. The dramatic event produced a powerful stream of energy. Around three and a half years later, something else, something new, created another curious blast or release of energy.

Edo Berger, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University and one of the scientists who detected the new event, told Mashable that there is something else happening now.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory picked up a burst of energy that was intense. Astronomers think it's like a sonic boom when a plane breaks the sound barrier.

Astronomers propose two scenarios that could explain the event, neither of which has ever been observed before, according to Aprajita Hajela, an astronomer who led the research. Hajela is a PhD student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

1. Akilonova glow: A what? When two dense stars collide, they create a bright blast called a kilonova. Astronomers think that the blasts may be important to the universe and our lives.

   Astronomers theorize that debris expanded out into space after the explosion. The blast made gases or stardust come up. We can detect the afterglow from millions of light-years away.

2. There is a possibility that the merger of two stars created a black hole that is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. When debris falls in, it releases energy as it spirals around the object. This could be the source of the new energy.

An artist's conception of two neutron stars colliding. Credit: National Science Foundation / LIGO / Sonoma State University / A. Simonnet

An artist's conception of hot gas and debris stripped from neutron starts before they collided. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / CI Lab

It is not surprising that the two stars collided in space. It is common for stars in the same solar system to be near each other. Most stars are found in systems with more than one companion. The stars run out of fuel. Great mergers and bursts of energy can be caused by the loss of momentum and collision of profoundly dense neutron stars.

The looming question is how they will determine if something is falling into a black hole or a kilonova afterglow. They will continue to watch the radiation coming from this deep space location. The source will be revealed by that. If it is an afterglow, they would expect more radio emissions, but black holes give off X-ray emissions.

What else will these next observations reveal about the deep universe?

This is not the end of the story according to Berger.