Scientists Discover Cause of the Most Powerful Explosion in Space

In just two weeks, it emitted as much energy as the Sun will release over its entire lifetime.

A recently observed powerful explosion in space may have been caused by a "collision" between a star and a small to medium-sized black hole. This research was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The anomaly, named AT2022aedm, was detected by astronomers in a red galaxy located about two billion light-years from Earth.

Initially, astronomers suspected it was a supernova. However, after analysis, they dismissed this theory—the explosion's power turned out to be approximately 100 times greater. Additionally, supernovae fade over the course of a month, while the brightness of AT2022aedm dimmed in just 14 days. This means that in just two weeks, it emitted as much energy as our Sun will produce over 10 billion years.

There were also suspicions that it could be a supernova with core collapse. Such events occur when massive stars, with a mass exceeding that of the Sun by eight times, run out of fuel for nuclear fusion—then their cores can no longer withstand gravity and ultimately collapse.

Further analysis of the cosmic anomaly also ruled out other types of supernovae.

Ultimately, astronomers concluded that this is something entirely new. Likely, the result of a collision between a star and a black hole. They particularly favor this theory, as such processes remain unexplored. Moreover, studying such explosions will finally help clarify how supermassive black holes, which are thousands of times larger than the Sun, grew to such terrifying sizes.

The authors of the study have already made significant progress in their investigation, uncovering two "cold cases" in archival documents that correspond to AT2022aedm. This means that a similar class of powerful cosmic explosions has been observed before, but likely went unnoticed amid the vast flow of data. This suggests that the truth may be lurking nearby.