It’s challenging to imagine anything so bright. So, exactly what is it? Although they don’t know for sure, astronomers do have several possibilities. They think it is a magnetar, a type of supernova that is so powerful that it exceeds the physics’ energy limits, or the most powerful supernova ever seen up to this point.
This asteroid is so brilliant that astronomers are having trouble describing it. Krzysztof Stanek, an astronomy professor at Ohio State University and the team’s co-principal investigator, stated that if it is a magnetar, “it’s as if nature took everything we know about magnetars and turned it up to 11.”
The object was originally spotted by the All-Sky Automated Survey of Supernovae (ASAS-SN or “assassin”), a small network of telescopes designed to find luminous objects in the sky. Despite being extremely brilliant, this object cannot be seen with the naked eye because it is 3.8 billion light-years away. About 250 supernovae have been discovered by ASAS-SN since its launch in 2014, however this discovery, ASASSN-15lh, stands out because to its enormous scale.
It is 570 billion times brighter than the sun, 20 times brighter than all of the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy put together, and 200 times brighter than a typical supernova.
Stanek questioned, “We have to ask, how is that even possible?” To glow that brightly, a lot of energy is needed, and that energy must originate from somewhere. One notion is put out by Todd Thompson, an astronomy professor at Ohio State. An very unique type of star known as a millisecond magnetar, which is a quickly rotating, dense star with an enormously strong magnetic field, may have been created by the explosion.
The most extreme example of a magnetar that is technically possible, this magnetar would have to spin at least 1,000 times per second and convert all of that rotational energy to light with nearly 100% efficiency in order to shine as brilliantly as it does.
“Will we ever see anything more bright than this, given those limitations, Thompson asked? Basically, the answer is no if it really is a magnetar.” In the upcoming months, the Hubble Space Telescope will enable researchers to investigate the host galaxy surrounding this item in an effort to solve this mystery. Inferring that it is not a magnetar at all and that the gas surrounding it is proof of a supermassive black hole, the researchers may find that this dazzling object is situated at the very centre of a large galaxy.
If such is the case, Christopher Kochanek, an astronomy professor at Ohio State and a co-author of the study, believes that a novel type of event may be responsible for the strong light. It would be something the galaxy’s core had never seen before. The discoveries will almost probably result in new theories about how things arise in the cosmos, whether it be a magnetar, a supermassive black hole, or something else different.
