About eight billion years ago, a large cloud of hydrogen fell into a supermassive black hole – triggering the most energetic explosion ever observed by astronomers.
The burst of radiation was ten times stronger than any known supernova and lasted more than three years, write the scientists led by Philip Wiseman from the British University of Southampton in the “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society”.
Not visible to the naked eye
At first, the sky researchers could not make sense of the unusual cosmic event. Only the observation with many different instruments from the long-wave infrared range to high-energy X-rays helped them to find an explanation. The explosion could not be seen with the naked eye.
Explosions are not uncommon in the cosmos: from thermonuclear explosions on dying stars, to supernovae that rip apart entire stars, to the bursts of radiation that occur when supermassive black holes engulf entire stars. The range of such events is rich. But none of this matched the particularly energetic celestial event cataloged under the designation AT2021lwx.
