This odd connection between the two particles is instantaneous, seemingly breaking a fundamental law of the universe. The strange part of quantum entanglement is that when you measure something about one particle in an entangled pair, you immediately know something about the other particle, even if they are millions of light years apart. These particles could be, for example, electrons or photons, and an aspect could be the state it is in, such as whether it is “spinning” in one direction or another. In the simplest terms, quantum entanglement means that aspects of one particle of an entangled pair depend on aspects of the other particle, no matter how far apart they are or what lies between them. It is estimated to be about 2 trillion times brighter than the Sun, Wiseman said.The 2022 Nobel Prize in physics recognized three scientists who made groundbreaking contributions in understanding one of the most mysterious of all natural phenomena: quantum entanglement. That is much farther than most other new flashes of light in the sky, which means the explosion behind it must be far greater. By analysing different wavelengths of light, they worked out that the explosion was roughly 8 billion light years away. It was only when astronomers, including Wiseman, looked at it through more powerful telescopes that they realised what they had on their hands.
SCARY SPACE PHENOMENA PLUS
For something to be bright for two plus years was immediately very unusual.” Philip Wiseman, research fellow at the University of Southampton, who led the research, said: “Most supernovae and tidal disruption events only last for a couple of months before fading away. GldfFWltJcĪT2021lwx was first detected in 2020 by the Zwicky Transient Facility in California and subsequently picked up by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) based in Hawaii.īut until now the scale of the explosion had been unknown. A supermassive black hole seems to be the only solution. But no theoretical models came close to explaining the terrifying energy output that continues to this day. We first thought AT2021lwx aka ZTF20abrbeie aka #ScaryBarbie was a superluminous supernova from a massive star. The “Scary Barbie” nickname came from its alphanumeric designation “abrbeie” and “scary” because of its power. Last year, astronomers witnessed the brightest explosion on record – a gamma-ray burst known as GRB 221009A, which was nicknamed BOAT – for Brightest Of All Time.Īlthough BOAT was brighter than AT2021lwx, it lasted for just a fraction of the time, meaning the overall energy released by the AT2021lwx explosion was far greater.ĪT2021lwx has earned the nickname “Scary Barbie” from researchers owing to its “terrifying energy”.Īccording to Danny Milisavljevic, assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University, AT2021lwx was first assigned a random alphanumeric name when discovered: ZTF20abrbeie. Such events are very rare and nothing on this scale has been witnessed before, the researchers say. Led by the University of Southampton, the astronomers believe the explosion is a result of a vast cloud of gas, possibly thousands of times larger than our sun, that has been violently disrupted by a supermassive black hole.Īccording to the study, the explosion took place nearly 8 billion light years away, when the universe was about 6 billion years old and is still being detected by a network of telescopes. The explosion, known as AT2021lwx, has currently lasted more than three years, compared with most supernovae which are only visibly bright for a few months, according to a study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. While the astronomers offered on Friday what they think is the most likely explanation for the explosion, they emphasised that more research was needed to understand the puzzling phenomenon. Astronomers have identified the largest cosmic explosion ever observed, a fireball 100 times the size of our Solar System that suddenly began blazing in the distant universe more than three years ago.
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