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Hubble Spots Star Explosion Astronomers Can't Explain

Posted by samzenpus on from the what-now? dept.

schwit1 writes: The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted the explosion of a star that does not fit into any theory for stellar evolution. "The exploding star, which was seen in the constellation Eridanus, faded over two weeks — much too rapidly to qualify as a supernova. The outburst was also about ten times fainter than most supernovae, explosions that destroy some or all of a star. But it was about 100 times brighter than an ordinary nova, which is a type of surface explosion that leaves a star intact. 'The combination of properties is puzzling,' says Mario Livio, an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. 'I thought about a number of possibilities, but each of them fails' to account for all characteristics of the outburst, he adds." We can put this discovery on the bottom of a very long list of similar discoveries by Hubble, which this week is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its launch.

8 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. More things in space by CaptQuark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It just means there are more things in space that we don't fully understand yet. But every discovery adds knowledge so we can understand it better.

    ~~

    1. Re:More things in space by BVis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Dude sounds like a crank. For example: this article raises a number of red flags for me. One, he references his own work as the sole basis for a conclusion, and two, he whines like a 5 year old:

      Since, as usual, none of the above authors reference the voluminous evidence that quasars are intrinsically redshifted objects ejected from lower redshifted galaxies, there is very little chance of conventional astronomy correcting a huge error in their fundamental assumptions.

      Waah! The mean nasty mainstream astronomers won't completely change the field because I said so! Waaah!

      --
      Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
  2. I blame the Vogons by AmIAnAi · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just saying, maybe it's not a natural event.

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
  3. Re: War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    My first thought was "death star".

    Mine too. And from TFA:

    The light that Hubble recorded from the newly found outburst left its distant home galaxy 7.8 billion years ago.

    So it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away

  4. What about distance? by little1973 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The host galaxy is quite far from us. At these distances we can only rely on the red shift which I always thought not to be completely accurate.

    So, if that galaxy is a little bit closer to us then there may not be any mystery here.

    --
    Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
  5. Re:War by Rob+Riggs · · Score: 4, Funny

    Probably some long-forgotten interstellar war.

    Nothing that exciting. Just a Vogon constructor fleet doing their job. They posted the notice. Nobody could be bothered to read it.

    --
    the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
  6. Re:We may have just found by JMJimmy · · Score: 5, Funny

    A new type of star !

    It was obviously an alien weapon and the government is trying to explain it away.

  7. Re:We may have just found by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's from a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Must be the Death Star blowing up Alderaan.