Massive Cosmic Explosion Detected.
Astronomers Discover Largest Cosmic Event on Record
In 2020, the Zwicky Facility in California, USA recorded an explosion with a brightness that has continued for three years. According to astronomers, this explosion is the largest cosmic event ever recorded. Dr. Philip Wiseman of the University of Southampton stated that due to the explosion’s long duration of brightness, his team analyzed the light and calculated that the explosion occurred 8 billion light years away.
Dr. Wiseman noted that this explosion’s brightness has not been encountered in scientific literature to date and that he and his team were “extraordinarily surprised” by their findings. The brightness caused by most supernovas usually takes a few months to disappear. Dr. Wiseman stated, “We were very surprised that the brightness continued for over 2 years.”
The explosion was likely caused by gas clouds thousands of times the mass of the sun being swallowed by a black hole. The event emitted shock waves into space, and remnants of the superheated gas cloud surrounding the black hole caused a ringed glow. Dr. Wiseman said that these events are extremely rare, but they can generate enough energy to be key processes in how the centers of galaxies change over time.
Dr. Wiseman’s team is working to obtain more detailed information about the explosion. He hopes that it will be easier to detect similar events with advanced telescope systems to be activated soon. According to British Royal Astronomical Society Vice President Dr. Robert Massey, an event of this scale had never been encountered before. Research will begin to detect similar-sized explosions in space, and Dr. Massey said, “I would be surprised if this was the only event in the universe.”
The British Royal Astronomical Society publication “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” published the research results.
