In 2018, scientists discovered a new class of supernovae. The first object was discovered by the orbital telescope NuSTAR and
What is known
Researchers from the University of Sheffield have studieddata that was received in different wavelength ranges. Modern scientific theories suggest that a spherical explosion occurs during a supernova explosion. As it turns out, the explosion was flat at the time of the birth of AT2018cow, making the first cosmic cow ever discovered even more unique.
Brightness, temperature and durationthe afterglows from the AT2018cow flare were many times more powerful than researchers have ever been able to record. At the same time, physicists have no explanation for a flat explosion, although there are several assumptions.
Alternatively, after the explosion formeda supermassive black hole or a neutron star, due to which the ejected shell instantly formed an accretion disk. The second assumption is that the disk with matter appeared before the supernova explosion.
In conclusion, we add that in addition to AT2018cowthe researchers were able to find four more "cows", but each of them had a spherical explosion. Scientists will continue to study the AT2018cow anomaly. Perhaps they will come to the aid of the new space observatory Vera C. Rubin, which will start operating in 2024.