Astronomers Astonished by Largest Explosion Since the Big Bang
But astronomers have just discovered a type of cosmic blast that puts all those to shame. They're called "extreme nuclear transients" (ENTs) — and they're quite literally the most powerful explosion witnessed since the dawn of time.
What produces ENTs is appropriately catastrophic: a star, at least three times as massive as our Sun, being obliterated by a supermassive black hole.
"We've observed stars getting ripped apart as tidal disruption events for over a decade, but these ENTs are different beasts, reaching brightnesses nearly ten times greater than what we typically see," Jason Hinkle, lead author of a new study published in the journal Science Advances, and a researcher at the University of Hawai'i's Institute for Astronomy (IfA), said in a statement about the work.
"Not only are ENTs far brighter than normal tidal disruption events, but they remain luminous for years, far surpassing the energy output of even the brightest known supernova explosions," Hinkle added.
The first clues emerged when Hinkle and his team were trawling through public data collected by the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, a vast three-dimensional map of over two billion stars and counting. Amid this stellar sea, they noticed flares of light, including one recorded in 2016 and another in 2018, that inexplicably lasted for several years. Most cosmic explosions, for comparison, only shine for several weeks.
"When I saw these smooth, long-lived flares from the centers of distant galaxies, I knew we were looking at something unusual," Hinkle said.
He wasn't the only one on the scent. Back in 2023, another team of astronomers reported a similar detection with the Zwicky Transient Facility in California. Following-up on these findings, Hinkle conducted additional observations with other telescopes, including the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and linked these phenomena together.
The most formidable ENT, assigned the screenname-esque moniker of Gaia18cdj, unleashed 25 times more energy than the most powerful supernova ever detected. In one year, it radiated energy equal to all the energy our Sun will produce in its entire lifetime across billions of years — times one hundred. Typically, a supernova produces "just" one Sun's worth of energy.
To produce such a tremendous blast, a star has to undergo a brutal, slow death. That's what sets these apart from when a star falls into a black hole in a typical tidal disruption event, which culminates in a powerful but brief flash. An ENT draws out the torture, forming a disk of the star's shredded entrails that glows for years.
This aspect of a supermassive black hole's diet could tell us a lot about how they grew to their monstrous masses — a mystery that has long haunted astronomers — and how they stamped their name on a crucial period of the universe's history.
"By observing these prolonged flares, we gain insights into black hole growth when the universe was half its current age and galaxies were busy places — forming stars and feeding their supermassive black holes ten times more vigorously than they do today," said coauthor Benjamin Shappee, an associate professor at IfA, in a statement.
"These ENTs don't just mark the dramatic end of a massive star's life. They illuminate the processes responsible for growing the largest black holes in the universe," Hinkle added.
More on astronomy: Scientists Spot Mysterious Object in Our Galaxy Pulsing Every 44 Minutes
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Medscape
an hour ago
- Medscape
Is Red Meat Bad for You? The Proof Is in the Processing
This transcript has been edited for clarity. Is red meat bad for you? On the one hand, meat makes you strong, and it's every American's God-given right to grill a steak on his barbecue during the summer. I believe this came up in a church synod at some point… But on the other hand, the WHO (World Health Organization) has declared red meat a carcinogen, with a hot dog being as bad as cigarette. Yes, that was headline when the report came out. So, how do we reconcile these opposing ideas? Part of the solution is realizing the WHO organization in question is based in France. Maybe they're still angry about the "freedom fries" thing, but actually examining the nuances of the French language will help us understand what's going on. If you don't speak French, don't worry I got you covered. Ce n'est pas si difficile de tout n'inquiétez vous pas. Vous allez voir . Sit back, grab a baguette, and let's find out how dangerous red meat really is. I'm Christopher Labos, and this is Medscape's On Second Thought . Bonjour, tout le monde! Now, meat doesn't seem like it should be a complex topic to study, but it is. Many people around the world eat animals, but we don't all eat the same animals. For example, this is a cow, often used to make hamburger and steak. And this is Tobi, God's perfect angel who gets a more elaborate birthday party than I do each year. He is my son, and I would throw myself in front of a moving car for him. By necessity, when we do medical research on meat, we are lumping together a whole lot of a different human behavior, with people eating different types of animals based on where they live. There's no real alternative, and frankly, you can't let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Most credible research will at least separate out red meat from white meat. But most people don't really know what the difference is. If you thought pork was white meat, you're wrong. You think that because of a marketing slogan. In 1987, the National Pork Board paid for the marketing campaign "Pork. The Other White Meat." They were basically trying to position pork as an alternative to chicken. People also usually think veal or deer is white meat. They think the difference between white and red meat has something to do the age of the animal, whether its free range, or the color of the meat. But it doesn't. Chefs and restaurants say all kinds of things, but the real definition is simple: Mammals are red meat, and birds are white meat. Now, there's another thing we need to explain. We have red meat, but we also have processed red meat. Processed red meat is when red meat is transformed in some way — and that doesn't mean cooking. If you just take a piece of steak and cook it on your barbecue or in the oven, that's not processed meat. Processing is doing things like salting the meat, smoking it, or curing it. 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But in French, they are slightly different. Le risque et le hasard don't quite mean the same thing in French. To be fair, their definitions are technically different in English, as well — as those of you who read the dictionary for fun already know. A risk is the probability that something harmful will happen. A hazard is a potential source of harm. For example, a grenade is a hazardous thing to have on your desk, but the risk of it exploding is quite low… unless you pull the pin. IARC is researching hazard. They are evaluating whether something is associated with cancer, not how risky that something is. IARC categorizes everything into groups: carcinogenic to humans, probably carcinogenic, possibly carcinogenic, or not classifiable. There is technically a "not carcinogenic" group, but there's nothing in there. Well, there was one substance in there for a bit, but they removed it. Comment below if you know what that substance is. Here's a hint: You find it in yoga pants. So, IARC has never found anything that doesn't cause cancer. When they go hunting for heffalumps and woozles, they find heffalumps and woozles. To be fair, which I am under no contractual obligation to be, they are a WHO agency, and they are tasked to review substances that are of interest to world governments. As such, they are not going to review stuff that is clearly unrelated to cancer… but still. They put a lot of stuff in Group 1, the (definitely) carcinogenic group. Tamoxifen is in Group 1, and as most of you know, tamoxifen treats breast cancer. It has saved countless lives. Calling it a carcinogen sounds a bit daft, but it is associated with abnormal uterine bleeding and an increased risk of uterine cancer. And the data is pretty uncontroversial, right? Thus, IARC says, 'We are certain this association is true, therefore it goes in Group 1.' But what's the risk of tamoxifen causing uterine cancer? It's 0.3% on the absolute risk scale. It's basically zero and a heck of a lot lower than the breast cancer risk. Clearly, you should take the drug if you have ER-positive breast cancer. So, this is the problem. IARC is saying how certain they are that something is dangerous, but not how dangerous something is. Conclusive data will land a substance into Group 1: carcinogenic. Strong but not conclusive data goes into Group 2a: probably carcinogenic. If there's only some evidence, contradictory evidence, or maybe just animal data, you get sorted into Group 2b: possibly carcinogenic. And Group 3 is used when there's not much data to work off of. Generally, their system works okay. They put tobacco, asbestos, and gamma radiation in Group 1, which makes sense. But then also put stuff like birth control pills, estrogen, and tamoxifen in Group 1. Sure, there is a small increased risk of breast cancer with birth control pills if you have a family history, but it's a pretty small risk and frankly negligible for the general population — plus, it's largely outweighed by the decrease in ovarian cancer risk that comes with using birth control pills. But IARC isn't doing that type of nuanced calculation. They say, 'Estrogen causes breast cancer. The pill has estrogen. The link is proven. The pill goes into Group 1.' So, it was IARC that reviewed all the data about processed red meat and declared it a Group 1 carcinogen. Fun fact: Unprocessed red meat was only put in Group 2A because the data was less solid. For anybody grilling a steak right now, this doesn't apply to you. But not everybody agreed with IARC. The Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) Consortium was a group of researchers who also reviewed the data on red meat and came to a completely different conclusion. 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Is the risk high enough for us to stop killing and eating Bambi's mother? Hard to say. It's not negligible, but it's not astronomical either. And there are economic and environmental factors to keep in mind — issues that are often forgotten when we talk about medicine. I will stress one point, though. The IARC estimates of 1% absolute risk increase are about daily consumption of processed meat. You don't need to eat jerky every day of your life. For Medscape, I'm Dr Christopher Labos… with Tobi.
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