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Corey S Powell (coreyspowell@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 06-Oct-2023 17:39:43 UTC Corey S Powell

I love a science mystery, and this is a good one:
About once a year, a mysterious blue flash appears from a different part of the sky, then fades in a matter of days. Nobody knows what these things are. And the latest one, nicknamed "the Finch," may be the strangest one yet.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-finds-bizarre-explosion-in-unexpected-place #science #astronomy #astrodon
In conversation about a year ago from mastodon.social permalink
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1. A NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of a Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT) designated AT 2023fhn, indicated by pointers. It shines intensely in blue light and evolves rapidly, reaching peak brightness and fading again in a matter of days, unlike supernovae which take weeks or months to dim. Only a handful of previous LFBOTs have been discovered since 2018. The surprise is that this latest transient, seen in 2023, lies at a large offset from both the barred spiral galaxy at right and the dwarf galaxy to the upper left. Only Hubble could pinpoint its location. And, the results are leaving astronomers even more confounded because all prevous LFBOTs have been found in star-formig regions in the spiral arms of galaxy. It’s not clear what astronomical event would trigger such a blast far outside of a galaxy. NASA, ESA, STScI, Ashley Chrimes (ESA-ESTEC/Radboud University)
  https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/189/192/687/735/380/original/f6f1151c6462e59b.jpg
2. NASA's Hubble Finds Bizarre Explosion in Unexpected Place - NASA Science
  
  A very rare, strange burst of extraordinarily bright light in the universe just got even stranger – thanks to the eagle-eye of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The phenomenon, called a Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT), flashed onto the scene where it wasn’t expected to be found, far away from any host galaxy. Only Hubble […]

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