"Since the first lit up astronomers' telescopes in 2018, only 14 of these strange pulses have been detected, making them some of the rarest astronomical events on record. Known as Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients (LFBOTs), these lights burn faster and up to 100 times brighter than anything else scientists have seen. LFBOTs come and go astonishingly fast, reaching their dazzling peak and fading into oblivion over days compared to the weeks or months of most stellar explosions."
"Strangely, they also maintain their unique blue glow over the entire course of their brief display, which suggests they must be extremely hot the whole time. However, Dr Nugent now believes that LFBOTs' origins are just as violent, unusual, and unlikely as their spectacular effects. In their pre-print paper, Dr Nugent and her co-authors examine the kinds of galaxies that the few confirmed blue flashes have been seen in."
"By measuring the rates of star formation, mass, and levels of metallic elements in these galaxies, the researchers paint a picture of how LFBOTs might form. This data suggests that they could be caused by ultra-dense objects like black holes or neutron stars colliding with an exceptionally bright sun called a Wolf-Rayet star. Wolf-Rayet stars begin their lives as one part of a binary star system, in which two stellar giants orbit around a central point."
"As these stars creep closer together, the larger of the two starts to feast on its neighbour's outer layers. If they are just the right size, the 'donor' star's outer hydrogen layer is stripped away without destroying it completel"
Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients are rare blue flashes from deep space detected only 14 times since 2018. They rise to peak brightness quickly and fade within days, while remaining blue throughout their brief duration, indicating extremely high temperatures. Their host galaxies show measurable star formation rates, stellar mass, and metallicity levels. These properties suggest formation involving ultra-dense objects such as black holes or neutron stars interacting with exceptionally bright Wolf-Rayet stars. Wolf-Rayet stars originate in binary systems where one star strips the outer layers of its companion as the stars orbit closer. If conditions are right, the hydrogen layer can be removed without fully destroying the donor star, leaving a stripped, hot Wolf-Rayet star that can produce the observed transient behavior during a violent collision scenario.
Read at Mail Online
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