Harvard researchers suggest collisions cause rare LFBOT space explosions
Technology
Astronomers think they may have found a possible explanation behind a rare kind of space explosion called Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients (LFBOTs).
Only 14 of these have ever been spotted since 2018.
According to Harvard researchers, LFBOTs likely happen when a black hole or neutron star crashes into a massive Wolf-Rayet star.
LSST to hunt more LFBOTs
LFBOTs are super quick, super bright blue blasts that fade in just days, much faster than typical stellar explosions. They don't fit old theories about how stars die.
Figuring them out could teach us more about how stars live and change over time.
To get more answers, astronomers plan to hunt for more LFBOTs using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's newly begun decade-long Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).