Ultrahot, ultrafast explosion called 'the Camel' has astronomers puzzled

[Judi Lynn]

By Brandon Specktor about 16 hours ago

Only two other explosions like this have ever been detected: "the Cow" and "the Koala."



An illustration showing a black hole sucking in material from its accretion disk. The recently detected Camel explosion could have been a black hole's birth. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

In October 2020, astronomers detected an enormous, ancient explosion tearing through a galaxy several billion light-years from Earth. The blast appeared out of nowhere, reached peak brightness within a few days and then rapidly vanished again within a month — indicating that an extreme cosmic event, like the formation of a black hole or neutron star, had just occurred.

Astronomers call sudden, bright blasts like these fast blue optical transients (FBOTs), named for their extreme "blue" heat and incredibly rapid evolution.

But, if you prefer, you can call this one "the Camel."

That nickname (a play on the object's technical name, ZTF20acigmel) may seem unbefitting a blast so fast and powerful, but such is the way of FBOTs. A similar explosion, detected in 2018 roughly 200 million light-years from Earth, earned the unlikely name "the Cow" (the result of a procedurally generated scientific name), while another 2020 FBOT was dubbed "the Koala" (also a play on its technical name).

These three cuddly-wuddly FBOTs are in a class of their own when it comes to stellar explosions. Unlike typical supernovas — the epic blasts that occur when stars run out of fuel and collapse in on themselves — FBOTs seem to appear and disappear in a matter of weeks, rather than years.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/the-camel-explosion-black-hole-neutron-star?utm_source=notification