Dead star called 'Tasmanian devil' releasing signs of life months after explosion

Astronomers are baffled by a rare bright space event called Tasmanian devil that has been observed to flare up frequently and radiate more energy than that of other stars. This dead star is about 1 billion light-years from Earth. Astronomers are trying to understand why is the Tasmanian Devilreleasing signs of life months after its death. Another intriguing aspect is that theshort, bright flares were just as powerful as the original event that caused the star’s death.

This star was first discovered in September 2022.

As per a report by Nature, the explosion wasn't your regular supernova, but a Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT). Such an explosion is known toemit a brightblue light, reaching the peak quickly and fading within days.

“Amazingly, instead of fading steadily as one would expect, the source briefly brightened again — and again, and again,” lead study author Anna YQHo said.

“LFBOTs are already a kind of weird, exotic event, so this was even weirder," she added.

“An event like this has never been witnessed before,” said co-author of the paper Professor Jeff Cooke from Swinburne University of Technology and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav).

He helmed the observations using WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii as part of this work.

According to Jeff Cooke, when LFBOTs flare up, they emit more energy than an entire galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars like the Sun. He adds that themechanism behind this massive amount of energy is currently unknown.

“But in this case, after the initial burst and fade, the extreme explosions just kept happening, occurring very fast – over minutes, rather than weeks to months, as is the case for supernovae.”

“Amazingly, instead of fading steadily as one would expect, the source briefly brightened again, and again, and again,” Cornell University Assistant Professor Anna Ho, lead author of the paper said.

The LFBOT event, which occurred on 7 Sep 2022, is baffling, said Professor Cooke. “It pushes the limits of physics because of its extreme energy production, but also because of the short duration bursts. Light travels at a finite speed. As such, how fast a source can burst and fade away limits the size of a source, meaning that all this energy is being generated from a relatively small source.”

(With inputs from agencies)