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Related: About this forumThis Exploding 'Cow' May Be the First Black Hole Birth Ever Observed
By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | January 10, 2019 06:12pm ET
On June 16, 2018, a stupendously bright explosion tore across the cosmos and lingered in the sky above Earth for several weeks. The mysterious blast traveled 200 million light-years from the gut of the Hercules constellation, shone with the light of nearly 100 supernovas and captured the attention of the world's stargazers until, finally, it vanished from the sky as mysteriously at it appeared.
Astronomers named it "The Cow."
From the moment of its discovery, scientists knew that The Cow (officially named AT2018cow, which is a procedurally generated name) was no typical supernova. Now, months later, a team of international researchers is prepared to argue that The Cow is actually an incredible astronomical first: the birth of either a black hole or neutron star, witnessed live from Earth for the first time in recorded history. [When Space Attacks: 6 Craziest Impacts]
"We know from theory that black holes and neutron stars form when a star dies, but we've never seen them right after they are born. Never," Raffaella Margutti, an astrophysicist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and lead author of a forthcoming paper on The Cow, said in a statement.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/64475-birth-of-cow-black-hole-seen.html
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This Exploding 'Cow' May Be the First Black Hole Birth Ever Observed (Original Post)
Judi Lynn
Jan 2019
OP
Crutchez_CuiBono
(7,725 posts)1. Uh...Holy Cow.
in Hercules eh? Hmmm.
keithbvadu2
(36,788 posts)2. "live" - 200 million years ago
"live" - 200 million years ago
Just like you look across the room at someone live. And I'm sure you've looked at something on television 'live'. Hint: we never see anything live. We see a close by object as it was many, many millionths of a second ago. So, yeah, astronomers saw the 'cow' live. I'm neck deep into politics but, I love this sort of stuff. But alas, I'm not near intelligent enough to appreciate all that I read about space.
orangecrush
(19,546 posts)3. it DOES...
look like a cow!
LudwigPastorius
(9,139 posts)4. Music for this thread: