Space Just Got Weirder Astronomers Saw Strange Booms No One Can Explain
Mysterious Space Explosions Surprise Scientists
Space is a huge place with many mysteries. Some things happen in space that scientists cannot explain. One of these strange things is a group of bright explosions called LFBots. These explosions are not like anything we have seen before. In 2018, scientists saw the first one, and now about a dozen have been found. They are still trying to figure out what causes them.
Very Bright and Fast Explosions
In 2018, telescopes on Earth saw a bright explosion far away in space. It was 200 million light years away! This explosion was much brighter than a normal supernova. Supernovae are what we call it when a star explodes. But this one was about 100 times brighter! Usually, supernovae take weeks to fade away. But this explosion grew really big and bright very quickly. It became almost as big as our whole solar system. Then, it disappeared after just a few days. The scientists were puzzled.
They called it "the Cow" after its official name, AT2018cow. Since then, scientists have looked for more explosions like this one. They have found a few. Each one gets a fun animal nickname. There is "the Koala," "the Camel," "the Tasmanian devil," and even "the Finch" and "the Fawn." Each event has its special name and code.
These explosions are called LFBots. That stands for "luminous fast blue optical transients." Anna Ho, an astronomer from Cornell University in New York, says they are called that because they are very bright and blue. The blue color means the explosion is very hot, about 72,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
LFBots do not last very long. "Optical" means the light we can see, and "transient" means it happens quickly and then fades away. At first, scientists thought LFBots were failed supernovae. They thought maybe the star tried to explode but instead fell in on itself, making a black hole.
New Theories About LFBots
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Now, some scientists have a new idea. They think that LFBots might happen when a black hole eats a star. Black holes are very heavy and strong. Nothing can escape from them, not even light. Black holes are what is left after some big stars explode.
In November, another LFBot was seen by a telescope in Liverpool. Scientists called it AT2024wpp. It might get the animal name "the Wasp." Anna Ho and Perley are two scientists who studied it. "It's the best one since the Cow itself," said Perley. He also said the "Wasp" is the brightest LFBot seen since 2018.
Their work shows that this explosion was not a failed supernova. But they are still studying the data. Last year, Zheng Cao from the Netherlands Institute for Space Research and his team looked again at the first LFBots. They saw that it looked like a black hole was eating a star.
"I believe our study supports the intermediate mass black holes nature of AT2018cow and similar LFBots," said Cao. Scientists believe these special black holes exist, but they have not found proof yet. "The intermediate mass black hole model is the most exciting," said Perley. "It is still kind of debated in the community whether intermediate mass black holes really exist. The evidence has been quite sparing."
Some scientists think that finding these black holes could help solve another big mystery in space called dark matter. But for now, LFBots are still a puzzle.
Strange Booms From the Sky: Skyquakes
Earth has its own mysteries too. One of them is called a "skyquake." A skyquake is a loud booming noise that comes from the sky. It sounds like a gunshot or a car backfiring. People have heard skyquakes all around the world for over 200 years.
No one is sure what causes skyquakes. There are different ideas. Some people think they are caused by meteors burning up in the air. Others think they might be from military tests or even earthquakes.
The first skyquakes were written about in 1811. People in New Madrid, Missouri, heard strange booms during a big earthquake. Locals said it sounded like cannons. The same kind of sounds were heard in South Carolina during a big earthquake in 1886. People kept hearing the booms for weeks.
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Skyquakes have many names. In New York, after a loud boom near Seneca Lake in the 1850s, people called them "Seneca guns." James Fenimore Cooper wrote about this in his story "The Lake Gun." He said, "It is a sound resembling the explosion of a heavy piece of artillery, that can be accounted for by none of the known laws of nature. The report is deep, hollow, distant and imposing. The lake seems to be speaking to the surrounding hills, which send back the echoes of its voice in accurate reply."
Some scientists tried to find out if skyquakes are connected to earthquakes. In 2020, a team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill used special data to study the sounds. Eli Bird, a researcher, said, "Generally speaking, we believe this is an atmospheric phenomenon – we don't think it's coming from seismic activity. We're assuming it's propagating through the atmosphere rather than the ground. The atmospheric conditions could be such that that gets amplified in a particular direction, or is primarily affecting this localized area."
Skyquakes are still a mystery. Scientists keep looking for answers.
The Universe Keeps Expanding
Space is not only full of surprises like LFBots. The universe itself is changing all the time. One thing scientists know is that the universe is getting bigger. But they are not sure why it is growing so fast.
A long time ago, people wondered if there were aliens or if humans could live on Mars. Now, scientists are trying to learn why the universe is expanding faster and faster.
In 1998, scientists found out that the universe was not just growing, but was speeding up. The universe began expanding 13.8 billion years ago with the Big Bang. The Big Bang only lasted a tiny bit of time. After that, gravity slowed things down. But after about 9 billion years, the universe started speeding up again.
Scientists do not know what is causing this. They call it "dark energy." NASA says that dark energy makes up about 68-70 percent of the universe. But no one knows exactly what it is.
New Discoveries With Space Telescopes
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The Hubble Space Telescope helped find out that the universe was expanding faster than we thought. It showed that galaxies are moving away from us at about 67-68 kilometers per second, for every megaparsec. (A megaparsec is a very big distance in space.)
Now, the James Webb Space Telescope is giving new numbers. It found that galaxies may be moving away even faster, between 70 and 76 kilometers per second per megaparsec. This has left scientists confused.
Adam Riess, who led a new study, said, "The discrepancy between the observed expansion rate of the universe and the predictions of the standard model suggests that our understanding of the universe may be incomplete. With two NASA flagship telescopes now confirming each other’s findings, we must take this [Hubble tension] problem very seriously - it’s a challenge but also an incredible opportunity to learn more about our universe."
Marc Kamionkowski, a scientist at Johns Hopkins, also talked about the problem. He said, "One possible explanation for the Hubble tension would be if there was something missing in our understanding of the early universe, such as a new component of matter—early dark energy—that gave the universe an unexpected kick after the Big Bang. And there are other ideas, like funny dark matter properties, exotic particles, changing electron mass, or primordial magnetic fields that may do the trick." He added, "Theorists have license to get pretty creative."
Strange Bird Sounds in Space
Another mystery from space is the sound of birds—but not real birds. Scientists have found sounds in space that are like birds chirping. These are called "chorus waves." Chorus waves are strong electromagnetic waves found in space. They can be dangerous for astronauts and satellites because they can cause radiation.
Chorus waves move along Earth's magnetic field lines. They can speed up electrons, making them very fast—almost as fast as light. Sometimes, chorus waves help make the Northern Lights.
Chorus waves are not new to scientists. But recently, they were found farther away from Earth than ever before—over 100,000 kilometers (about 62,000 miles) away! Usually, they are found about 51,000 kilometers away.
Scientists at Beihang University in China used NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) satellites to find these waves. When chorus waves are changed to sound, they make noises that remind people of birds chirping.
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Allison Jaynes, a space scientist, said, "That opens up a lot of new questions about the physics that could be possible in this area. It’s very captivating, very compelling. We definitely need to find more of these events."
Richard Horne, a space weather expert, wrote that the findings were "a surprising result in a surprising region." This means chorus waves might not need special conditions from Earth to form.
Scientists hope these findings will help them understand how energy moves in space and solve old questions.
Why Do People Yawn?
Yawning is something everyone does. When you read about yawning, you might even feel like yawning! But why do we do it? Scientists do not agree on one answer.
The Cleveland Clinic says yawning is when you open your mouth and take a deep breath. It is a special movement. Your airway and mouth open wide. Muscles around your throat stretch. Yawning happens when you are tired, bored, or just waking up. Seeing or hearing someone yawn can also make you yawn!
A New Idea: Cooling the Brain
Andrew Gallup from the State University of New York at Oneonta has a new idea about yawning. He thinks yawning helps cool your brain. When you open your mouth wide, blood flows around your head. This helps keep your brain at the right temperature.
When you yawn, you also breathe in. This pulls cool air into your body and helps cool your brain too. Gallup wanted to test his idea.
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In his study, people held different packs to their heads while watching others yawn. When they held a warm pack or a room temperature pack, they yawned a lot—about 41% of the time. But when they held a cold pack, yawning dropped to just 9%.
Another test had people breathe through their noses, which cools the brain faster. With nasal breathing, no one yawned at all! But in other groups, at least 45% of people yawned at least once.
Gallup also checked body temperature. He found that people’s temperature goes up before a yawn and down after.
The study says, "According to our hypothesis, rather than promoting sleep, yawning should antagonize sleep. It has been widely believed that yawning in the presence of others is disrespectful and a sign of boredom. However, according to our account yawning more accurately reflects a mechanism that maintains attention. Likewise, when someone yawns in a group setting as evidence for diminished mental processing efficiency, contagious yawning may have evolved to promote the maintenance of vigilance."
But not everyone agrees. Christian Hess from the University of Bern said, "Gallup’s group has failed to present any convincing experimental evidence to support his theory."
So Many Mysteries Left to Solve
There are still so many questions for scientists to answer. Why do strange space explosions like LFBots happen? What causes skyquakes and chorus waves? Why is the universe growing so fast? And why do we yawn?
Every time scientists find something new, they ask more questions. But this is what makes science exciting. There is always something more to learn and discover, both here on Earth and far away in space!
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