Scientists discover cause of brightest-ever burst of light | BBC News

Scientists have discovered the cause of the brightest burst of light ever recorded - but discovered two even bigger mysteries in the process.
The burst of light, spotted in 2022, is now known to have had an exploding star at its heart, researchers say.
But that explosion, by itself, would not have been enough to have shone so brightly, and the discovery casts doubt on where heavy elements - like gold - come from.
Read more on the BBC News website: bbc.in/43YuKXQ
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#Science #Cosmology #BBCNews

[@EyeDeal_666]

An even bigger mystery is how do we get rid of bots trying to sell crypto coins in KZbin comment sections....

[@FrothyPine]

Not possible. Anyway would you like to invest in shitcoin or scamcoin or maybe bitcon

[@StarDustMoonRocket]

Oh, is that scam still available?

[@josephteller9715]

You get KZbin to spend some effort to stop them as illegal advertisers, since they didn't pay KZbin any $$$ then KZbin recruits them to sell their stuff thru paid thru ads via Hong Kong Advertising companies just like all the OTHER scammers.

[@eo177]

​@@StarDustMoonRocket Yeah! Want my financial scam artist- I meant advisor Mrs. Johnson? She grew my portfolio from 420k to nothing.

[@LeonDegrelle.z]

comt ID 🆔 check for acct easy stuff for hole of YT 😊

[@paulsterx]

Ah that classic Oasis hit, ‘Smashing Supernovae’. Takes me back…

[@penhaligano]

😂

[@baeberry3794]

Champane Supernova... In the sky?

[@penhaligano]

Somebody tell the poor lady 😂

[@jroobz]

loool

[@rogueplanet13]

And hulks gamma rays

[@deadwalking100]

Just glad it's that far away! The energy released mind boggling deadly.

[@MrSimonw58]

I can handle it

[@jacmeredith4892]

Far away and a long time ago

[@kennybevan11]

And even at that distance, it did affect our ozone. Astonishing power

[@reamoinmcdonachadh9519]

This Super Nova was 2 billion light years away? So.....the light from it took that length of time to reach us, and we saw it for what? 7 minutes? This explosion was old before the first Human walked the Planet!!

[@moonshoes11]

That is relativity, right?

[@zapfanzapfan]

The explosion was old before we had multicellular life on this planet...

[@peterclarke3990]

Allegedly!

[@jimmygrizz9341]

Yep. Leave it to women to always bring up old shit.

[@PrabhuRPR]

@@moonshoes11not relativity, it’s about the speed the light. It took that long for the explosion to be visible on earth, because the light of the explosion just reached us here travelling for this much time. Cos yk, it’s massive massive distance

[@RealWatch1]

for anyone wondering supernovae is the plural of supernova

[@BillyP13]

Thanks for stating the obvious.

[@Simp_Zone]

This "professor" got it wrong though lol

[@bran_rx]

Thanks, I thought that was a whole new phenomenon.

[@brashawnwilliams4868]

Thank you because I was def wondering what she was talking about!

[@zapfanzapfan]

Maybe the nova identifies as "they" 🙂

[@gorrilaunit99]

*Maybe don't underestimate us small stars* 💪

[@johnd2058]

As a big one, I can confirm. One of my army buddies was small enough to punch me in the back of my knees. Impossible to stand against him in a fight.

[@wednesdeity]

@@johnd2058 3 inches isn't big

[@user-ld2iy4fo6g]

@@wednesdeity It is above average!!!!

[@wednesdeity]

@@user-ld2iy4fo6g it’s large I’d say

[@RandomnessTube.]

Stars aren't small they just come in other sizes.

[@zerocompanyhq]

1:16 *Supernova (supernovae is the plural) 1:19 _"Champagne Supernova"_ is the Oasis song #FacePalm #SMH

[@Jeonex]

I actually cringed when she said it

[@jskillet8912]

Saaaaaame

[@lindaseel9986]

I came here to say the same thing.

[@nagualdesign]

What do you mean? _Smashing Supernovae_ is a great song.

[@Statsy10]

Thank God I'm not an Oasis fan, that sounded like it would've hurt. 😂

[@boeingpameesha9550]

My sincere thanks for sharing it.

[@Scapestoat]

The chemistry between the two was lovely. Mutual excitement channelled into informing the masses. :)

[@elderwild1687]

Ur gay

[@Perri_Redder]

This looks like an exceptionally powerful axial beam. I personally never expected to ever see something like this. Pulsars have a somewhat similar force. I love that she actually talked about how massive compression forces during supernovae likely form low mass black holes during the event. I still cannot imagine the requirements for a supernovae to produce such exceptionally powerful axial beams at this solar mass and energy. Much study is required! So exciting!!

[@bubblezovlove7213]

I've always wondered how axial beams come to be. Is it a product partially anyway, of the fact the object is spinning so fast?

[@public.public]

That supernova is small fry compared to Professor Catherine Heymans teeth generating the brightest burst of light in recorded history.

[@blinkyrob182]

Reporter learnt absolutely sod all from that encounter 😂

[@countvontoten3978]

It is probably an Imperial Death Star test firing exercise.

[@kazi6343]

Those damn aliens need to keep it down. People are trying to sleep here.

[@phunanon]

This is the second time I've seen Heymans on BBC - I love her explanations of things, even if I'm already familiar with a lot of it!

[@davecanly7535]

She didn't answer any of the questions specifically...waste of time asking her

[@CustardCream22]

Really? She repeated what we already knew, made loads of mistakes and answered nothing. She’s terrible 😂

[@lifesbutastumble]

And yet you didn't notice she mispronounced supernova multiple times?

[@phunanon]

@@lifesbutastumble, she said "supernovae", which is the plural of "supernova" 😐

[@lifesbutastumble]

@@phunanon Yes, but she also used it when talking about the singular, AND when talking about the Oasis song

[@andychizzle]

That was one of the weirdest 3:44 mins of my life 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@markhand4530]

what a lovely smile it has brightened up my day

[@alexanderp7521]

yep, the person with such a smile can bite off your hand and do not notice 😄

[@LeonDegrelle.z]

Aliens can you see our signal 😮

[@kabirsingh2193]

The smile signal

[@kacodemonio]

@@kabirsingh2193 The smile of Violeta Friedman

[@HerrPoopenstein]

They can see what kind of toothpaste you use! They're watching YOU YOU YOU specifically!! 🤣

[@dukeofglasgow9354]

YOU ARE BUGS

[@LeonDegrelle.z]

Can you see the signal Dinosaurs probably 😂 they were about when it left the origin

[@2ebarman]

Maybe small black hole passing through the star, aggitating it beyond repair🤔

[@oluwatoyinkushalu1999]

she doesn't need to be married to have a gold ring. 😂😂😂😂

[@sangeet9100]

... and to have known about gold you don't need to have acquired a gold ring either - some reasoning by a scientist! must have had a recent wedding where she saw her first gold ever

[@sangeet9100]

her wedding ring just exploded, probably

[@MrMegatron2011]

She seems super nervous but trying to contain it.

[@TheKennychan1]

The B.O.A.T. Luv it ❤

[@alissonkelly1510]

I wonder if the guy who invented science thought his work would lead to this, amazing underdog story

[@steveswanproductionstt6355]

I love the acronym!

[@sintyacozma237]

I want to see more science news

[@vanessacherche6393]

alignment of the supernova has a great deal to do with how bright the gamma rays are, given enough supernovae in the universe, one is always closest to a bullseye...

[@XTSu-sl1bb]

The boat 😂

[@littlefinger5199]

She’s driving me crazy using the word supernovae! 😂😂😂

[@shmookins]

And the other day I was reading about a star that is shooting a beam 40 trillion miles long. That is enough to go to our nearest star then halfway back again. Mindboggling stuff the universe is.

[@CloudBushyMath]

Wow, Sounds both Marvelous and Mind Blowing

[@northascrowsfly]

Seven minutes is a long time compared to other cosmological 'flash' events. Did they actually catch the whole timeline and scale so as to form a graphical representation?

[@jimmygrizz9341]

Who you asking? You know the TV can’t hear you, right? The lady in the video isn’t going to respond to your question.

[@northascrowsfly]

@@jimmygrizz9341 You know other people will watch this video, right? You know other people will read the comments, right? You know other people might know more about the full report, right? You know other people aren't toxic and irrelevant like you, right?

[@vanessacherche6393]

i'd imagine there are at least a few graphs of the event. haven't seen em myself, but data would be standard. should be available when study is peer reviewed.

[@TheGreenReaper]

@@jimmygrizz9341 Well, actually... this _is_ the BBC channel, so you never know.

[@Twirlip2]

So, as I understand it: the Hulk drank champagne at a super Navy wedding on a big boat wearing a gold ring made of heavy chemicals; and in a disturbing development, the Joker now controls the body of a professor of astrophysics; but if that's the case, where's Batman?

[@paulrockatansky77]

A typical supernova doesn't produce anything heavier than iron. Elements heavier than iron (like gold, platinum, uranium) get created in neutron star mergers, which themselves are remnants of a star going supernova. This was a single star event, and yet the professor wrongly kept referring to it in plural (supernovae, with an "ee" at the end).

[@LeonDegrelle.z]

😂 big red bunions komrade

[@davecanly7535]

Infact, she didn't answer anything ...just explained in a roundabout way what most of us know anyway...where do they get these people from

[@kennybevan11]

The main problem is there aren't enough kilonovae to produce the amount of heavy elements we see out there. It has to come from somewhere else too

[@rayoflight62]

I speak Latin. For some reasons, there are many more speakers of Latin than what anyone is lead to believe. It is difficult to give an idea of how many mistakes people make, when they speak even a single word of Latin, pretending to know what they are talking about...

[@rayoflight62]

The Chicxulub asteroid was one giant lump of iridium. It left a visible layer of the metal in rock formations all over our Planet...

[@earlhammond9810]

Could it be that this super nova was aimed directly at Earth instead of an oblique angle of gamma rays? Could the aforementioned be the cause of the BOAT?

[@deadmemesrus1119]

Possssibly but it’s really hard to tell. If it was a gamma ray burst then absolutely that would be the easiest explanation but since it’s a supernova, which tends to have a more uniform energy dispersal it’s kinda hard to tell. My imagination says we might be seeing new insight into how pulsars are born with their radiation jets at the poles. However that would leave us wondering why it’s not got a variable magnitude. It would help explain it but that’s literally just entirely guesswork.

[@solessoles-hm1dg]

Didn't know that the mouth of Sauron was an astronomer aswell...cool!

[@myutube5882]

So this explosion happened over 4 billion years ago and we're just now getting that light.

[@DarjaTruth]

The exact position?

[@adeyanjufasan6716]

That dangerous looking gas pipe in my garage. Wicked.

[@jamesarnette1394]

What is a supanavy?

[@lifesbutastumble]

I cringed every time she said "supernova"

[@runner9528]

How many hulks can it create?

[@Zeibekkikina]

Brighter still is Prof. Catherine's smile ❤

[@danielhenderson7050]

Anyone know why she keeps using the plural supernovae to refer to a single supernova?

[@JeffreyGoddin]

She's not, it's a regional accent.

[@danielhenderson7050]

​​@@JeffreyGoddin what is the region her accent is from? Are there other words ending in a but sound like ee in that accent?

[@quinkydinkend]

@@danielhenderson7050she’s not Scottish

[@krellis1000]

@@JeffreyGoddin Certainly not a regional pronunciation

[@krellis1000]

@@danielhenderson7050 Sounds like a standard Home Counties accent, they say supernova like everyone else

[@bubblezovlove7213]

Whoah!! Her smile, it was her smile overpowering the data..... I'm blind...

[@ukdnbmarsh]

the star was small, ive heard the universe was pretty small once

[@mjpottertx]

Not visible light but a gamma ray burst. Different from a super luminous supernova 2015LH.

[@florinadrian5174]

I thought they were talking about her BOAT teeth. Seriously though, a possible explanation would be that the emission was not radial but constrained by a magnetic and/or gravitational field into a jet (well, two diametrically opposed) and the Earth was lucky enough to be in the right direction. Was there ever such a jet supernova?

[@behavior852]

B.O.A.T! I'm loving it!

[@jeffbguarino]

I thought they already figured out that supernovas don't make gold and platinum. It is neutron star mergers that do this. That was a few years ago that they figured this out.

[@kennybevan11]

The main problem is there aren't enough kilonovae to produce the amount of heavy elements we see out there. It has to come from somewhere else too

[@jeffbguarino]

@@kennybevan11 I didn't know that. I will look it up. I think a good chunk of the heavy elements some from kilonovae. I know they saw , ordinary supernova don't make much at all.

[@user-ge1fj1cf7o]

Dynamite comes in small packages 👌

[@onthetrail3457]

Brightest ever but should not have been that Bright.

[@morebaileyskim]

As a scottish guy living in the US I am well aware that we handle collective nouns differently. For example here in the states you could never say "our team are" as a collective it is always singular. I have NO CLUE why this contributor is saying the singular indefinite article followed by the plural. It makes negative sense. It is like a mistake was made and added to ha ha. Oh well. On to my next irritation I suppose :-D

[@koolerpure]

maybe it was so bright because its directing its light towards us

[@Acex4090]

Something about her smile makes me uncomfortable.

[@rjkarlin9366]

Give us your brightest

[@mimikurtz2162]

It's odd, but I didn't notice.

[@s18169ex3]

What is a Novy? I’ve heard of supernova, but not supernovae.

[@MK44078]

It's gonna roast us like a marshmallow

[@rickywest2022]

Just shows how little we really know

[@quinkydinkend]

“And a smashing Supernovie in the skyyyyy”

[@dariushmilani6760]

Bear in mind that this event happened 2.4 billion years ago and it took light that long to reach us .

[@dineshtharanga8122]

interesting................

[@rather_be_a_cat]

She has got to be the most condescending person I've ever had explain something to me.

[@SimonMcGrath-oj8kg]

Why? She said nothing that cud be taken as condescending, she knows very little of stellar mechanics and wanted to understand from a Professor.

[@davecanly7535]

Yes considering she didn't answer anything 😢

[@rather_be_a_cat]

@@SimonMcGrath-oj8kg I'm pretty sure people know what gold is without needing to be married and own a wedding ring, just for one.

[@SimonMcGrath-oj8kg]

@@rather_be_a_cat To be fair she was using that as an example to people who don't no where the heavy elements come from, young kid's say. Now we no it's not the stars per say that make the heaviest elements but their 'off spring' shall we say Neutron Stars. I get ur point tho and u r right

[@LuiExcalibur]

Sainsbury’s probably have better data on the subject

[@CustardCream22]

🤣🤣🤣

[@redmed10]

Doesn't this example place doubts on the concepts of standard candles which are used to identify the expansion and expansion rate of the universe.

[@PrabhuRPR]

The insignificant star produced the brightest light. That’s some notes for life.

We were all our Grandma's brightest-ever bursts of light 😘

[@BumberClarke]

Great news !

[@Necrotoxin7]

Only supernova I got was from those teeth woah 😬😮

[@jdn-wn4on]

Those teeth smashing together can probably be seen from their end too.

[@aliasif8498]

Twinkle Twinkle little star How i wonder wat u are

[@akbar87]

When the star farted. it was pointing at us. Simple

[@talentmongezi9825]

I think I solved the mystery. This professors grin might've been the catalyst to the supernova

[@Zeppelin9113]

the BOAT lol

[@br2266]

I don’t know about any bright supernova, but I do know some bright teeth that are very distracting.

[@alonerpunk]

People who love what they do! It's contagious 😂😅

[@livefastdieyoung8703]

What is supernove ??

[@deeppurple883]

I've found something brighter than that star, her smile. ✌️

[@D0Mlas360]

Is a super novee different from a Super Nova?

[@SimonMcGrath-oj8kg]

A Supernova is singular and Supernovae is plural. Nova is Latin for New, hope that helps.

[@rendezvouzwithrama]

Supernovi? It's supernovA, singular, not plural.

[@xo121w]

she could chew through metal

[@chrizzbenyon3993]

Gold is made by neutron capture not in supernovae according to Arvin Ash.

[@roguesheep3083]

advanced aliens testing a weapon. for peace, of course.

[@user-tz1tr3vn6d]

That's was just me in my spirit on my way to c my other self in another dimension....

[@guybeingaguy]

Turns out it was actually a fire fly that landed on the lens 🤷‍♀️

[@gill2689]

Listened to find out why this light was so bright from such a small supernova (question posed by the presenter who incidentally has an unnerving way of staring at the camera) and after the astrophysicist then repeated exactly what the presenter had already said and after lots of other sidestepping I learned precisely nothing. In other words they don't know diddly squat.

[@catalinacurio]

“Ever recorded”, so far… 😊

[@scottcraig987]

not chemical , it’s heavy elements

[@39ool]

سبحان الله تأملو في هذا ستجدون أن الله هو الخالق

[@ProfoundFamiliarity]

Mystery is a necessary part of our identification as living people. It arises out of the continuous distinctions that we make, which form our experience. This is due to the fact that we usually make those distinctions before we make the reasons that we use to explain them.

[@davecanly7535]

In other words she didn't answer anything specifically

[@MahamoudMayday]

If I do a bigger explosion when I take MDMA again, will you finally believe me 😂

[@traildoggy]

Before being too sure of our importance, think of this... You're just hanging out on the porch having an evening refreshment. Something goes wrong on the other side of the galaxy. Five minutes later you get the sensation that something is odd about the sky. Before you can look up, everything for millions of miles in any direction is turned to molecules.. Have a nice day. 😁

[@Exarathas]

The scientist also played the Mouth of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings Return of the King Extended Edition

[@Freenorg5]

Her dad was the frontman for Electric Mayhem

[@LancasterCrane-Alpha-0]

The Universe Is Mysterious Indeed...Unexpected, Yet There It Is...A Gift For All Of Mankind To Behold.

[@damnsurfer522]

I've seen her in LOTR.

[@ngemuyu3222]

Well... Heavy elements may just lean towards being dark matter after all. Who knows a dark heavy gas like plasma

[@michaelcox436]

What's a "soopanovy"?

[@ameliashandcraftedmemes7888]

Oh that was probably me accidently turning on discord light mode... oops

[@haoyuan92]

Not bright enough to light up my life

[@nuggetwagon]

Perhaps stars detonate for different reasons? perhaps dense star pairs which are near core collision have massive cores that detonate simultaneously or even asymmetrically? and therefore create a long spent and broadly spewed radiative event that is more like a multiple detonation event? The shockwaves of asymmetrically detonating stars of maybe twice the mass of our sun ( there could have been three or four or more) could have created a long and bright novae event that cascaded and didn’t create too many heavy elements. The elements created would have been from reverberating superheated shockwave events. You might get potassium. Or you get cobalt or even rarely iron, which was likely the remnant of another long ago event. Actually probably get more silicon and other elements low on the periodic table. It’s seems to me that several stars in a dance could go super critical, and therefore not fusing much more than iron.who knows in a supercritical storm of superheated non matter in such an event. What might one get?

[@smkh2890]

I think 'Supernovee' is the plural, or the Scottish maybe.