Astronomers have spotted a rare burst of light that's thought to be one of the Universe's brightest phenomena, but it has only served to deepen the mystery of what causes these unusual events.
Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients (LFBOTS) are very blue in colour and evolve rapidly, reaching their peak brightness and then fading away in a matter of days. Their short-lived nature makes them difficult to spot, and the first, dubbed 'the Cow', was only discovered in 2018.
Denne historien er fra December 2023-utgaven av BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
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Denne historien er fra December 2023-utgaven av BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
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Combine data captured at varied focal lengths to create rich, deep images
INSIDE THE SKY AT NIGHT
Back in September 2021, The Sky at Night show spoke to Carly Howett about NASA's then upcoming Lucy mission. As the spacecraft now approaches its main targets - the Trojan asteroids - we check in with her to see how the mission is going
The science of SCI-FI
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Seeing in a new light
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GEAR
Charlotte Daniels rounds up the latest astronomical accessories
Q&A WITH A STELLAR ECLIPSE SPECIALIST
Many stars are gravitationally locked inside multi-star systems, but a rare new triple-star system has set a new record for how cosy these clusters can get
