A massive explosion spotted 200 million light years from Earth has baffled astronomers. The strange spot, nicknamed ‘the cow’, is up to 100 times brighter than a supernova and is growing at an incredible rate. Scientists say the flash is a 9,000°C (16,000°F) cloud of high-energy particles bursting outwards at 12,000 miles (20,000km) per second, but are still unsure what triggered the brilliant blast. One
researcher said ‘there hasn’t really been another object like this.’ The explosion was captured on by the asteroid-tracking ATLAS telescopes at the Keck Observatory, which sits atop Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano in Hawaii. Astronomers noted the flash was unusually luminous – between 10 and 100 times brighter than the average supernova – but it was the speed of its appearance that really caught the eye of space experts. READ MORE
