Strange Space Explosions Are Moving Closer to Earth

Bright Side

Something mysterious is happening out there — and it’s heading our way. Scientists have spotted strange space explosions getting closer to Earth, and no one’s exactly sure what’s causing them. These bursts are powerful enough to be detected across galaxies, yet they appear without warning and vanish just as fast. Could it be collapsing stars, merging black holes… or something we’ve never seen before? This video breaks it all down in a way that’s easy to follow but seriously mind-blowing. Buckle up — space is sending us signals, and you’re going to want to know what they mean.  Credit: CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/: Optical Transient: by NASA, ESA/Hubble, STScI, A. Chrimes (Radboud University), https://esahubble.org/images/heic2309b/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hubble_image_of_a_Luminous_Fast_Blue_Optical_Transient_(LFBOT)_(heic2309b).jpg Possible AT2018cow: by Sloan Digital Sky Survey, https://skyserver.sdss.org/dr14/en/tools/chart/navi.aspx?opt=G&ra=244.000927647&dec=22.2680094118&scale=0.1981, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Possible_AT2018cow_244.000927647_%2B22.2680094118_20180624.png?uselang=ru black hole: by ESO, ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser, https://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1644a/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spinning_supermassive_black_hole_rips_star_apart_(artist’s_impression).webm LISA GW: by ND, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LISA_GW%2B_effect.gif LISA motion: by ND, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LISA_motion.gif Neutron star: by ESO/L. Calçada, https://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1733b/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Neutron_star_merger_animation_ending_with_kilonova_explosion.webm Liverpool Telescope: by Elme, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/, https://flic.kr/p/84Bewh, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Liverpool_Telescope_facility_exterior.jpg Supernova SN2020-ue: by Kees Scherer, https://flic.kr/p/2ihufgE, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Supernova_SN2020-ue_in_NGC4636_and_Asteroid_1989_Tatry_-_Flickr_-_kees_scherer.jpg Black Hole: by Dana Berry/NASA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Hole_Accretion_Disk.ogv LISA: by NASA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LISA.jpg Time Machines: by NASA Goddard, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Episode_3-_Time_Machines_(Hubble_–_Eye_in_the_Sky_miniseries)_PthDXZDRL9c.webm Gravitational Waves: by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio - Origin Films/James Leigh, KBR Wyle Services, LLC/Paul Morris, ADNET Systems, Inc./Aaron E. Lepsch, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14358, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hubble_Science-_Gravitational_Waves-_Ripples_In_Space-Time_(SVS14358_WAVES_WIDE_MP4).webm Biggest Black Holes: by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio - Krystofer Kim, Jeremy Schnittman, Francis Reddy, Jeremy Schnittman, Scott Wiessinger, Sophia Roberts, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14335, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NASA_Animation_Sizes_Up_the_Universe’s_Biggest_Black_Holes_(SVS14335_-_A_SMBHSizeComparison_withtext_4k_vFinal_v2).webm Earth to Space: by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio - NASA Goddard/Sierra Bouchér, eMITS/Beth Anthony, eMITS/Scott Wiessinger, eMITS/Elizabeth C. Wilk, NASA/GSFC/Wade Sisler, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14802, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_to_Space-_A_National_Symphony_Orchestra_Concert_(SVS14802_-_veil-b-1920x1080).webm LISA Project Office: by NASA, https://lisa.nasa.gov/archive2011/ AT 2024wpp: by Oxford Academic, https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/504800244/staf232fig5.jpg, https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/537/4/3298/8005401 Animation is created by Bright Side. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Stock materials (photos, footages and other):  https://www.depositphotos.com  https://www.shutterstock.com  https://www.eastnews.ru  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00So, astronomers have spotted about a dozen mysterious explosions in space, and no one really knows what they are or why they're happening.

00:09At the moment, they occur about 200 million light-years away.

00:14But what if, one day, they get much closer to our planet?

00:19Now, this all started back in 2018.

00:22One day, telescopes saw a giant boom far away in space.

00:26That explosion was incredibly bright, about 100 times brighter than a normal star explosion, called a supernova.

00:33The strange thing was that normal supernovae take weeks or even months to fade away.

00:39But that one went from kaboom to poof, gone, in just a few days.

00:45It got extremely hot and huge about the size of our whole solar system, and then vanished like it never happened.

00:52Scientists were seriously confused.

00:54Now, they named the explosion the cow, because its official name was too long and not exciting at all.

01:02Since then, astronomers have been hunting for more of those oddball explosions.

01:07And indeed, they've found a few more and given them weird animal names too.

01:12That's how we got the koala in 2018, the camel in 2020, the Tasmanian devil in 2022, and the finch or the fawn in 2023.

01:23All of those are part of a strange group called LFBOTs.

01:28That stands for luminous fast blue optical transients.

01:32Luminous means they're super bright.

01:34Fast because they happen and disappear really quickly.

01:38The blue color results from their temperature.

01:40They're super hot, like 72,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:45And optical transients means they show up in visible light and don't stick around for long.

01:50Even now, the scientists are still scratching their heads, trying to figure out what's causing these bizarre space flashes.

01:58It's like the universe is playing a mysterious game, and no one knows the rules yet.

02:03At first, scientists thought those space explosions were failed supernovae.

02:07That's when a star tries to explode, but instead collapses in on itself, kind of like a balloon popping inward.

02:15That collapse can create a black hole in the middle that will eat the star from the inside out.

02:21But recently, a new theory has popped up, and it's even cooler and creepier.

02:27It has to do with black holes, super-squished leftovers from exploded stars.

02:33They're so powerful that even light can't escape their clutches if it gets too close.

02:38That's why they're totally dark and impossible to see directly.

02:42Now, some space scientists think that unknown black holes, not too big and not too small,

02:47might be pulling in stars that get too close, which produces those explosions.

02:52Such holes are called intermediate-mass black holes, and no one has actually seen one of those yet.

02:59They're like space's biggest mysteries, and we'll try to solve it in a few minutes.

03:04But after that, you need to know that a new Lefbot has shown up in space.

03:09It was spotted by a telescope in Liverpool, and is currently called AT 2024 WPP.

03:16Yep, scientists still haven't picked an animal name, but they're thinking maybe the wasp.

03:21What do you think of this name?

03:22Share it in the comments!

03:24Anyway, one of the scientists is sure that it's the best one since the cow.

03:29The most recent space explosion is super interesting and extremely bright, like me.

03:34Maybe the brightest one since this whole Lefbot thing began in 2018.

03:40This new wasp boom also doesn't look like a failed supernova.

03:44And still, scientists are checking all the data just to be sure.

03:48Now, scientists are pretty sure mid-sized black holes that could cause the explosions must exist somewhere.

03:56It's like knowing a secret creature might be hiding in space, but no one has gotten a photo of it yet.

04:02Some scientists think that this idea is the most exciting, and that it might even help explain dark matter, one of the biggest mysteries in the entire universe.

04:11Well, whatever the truth is, a recent discovery might shed light on the existence of mid-sized black holes.

04:19The thing is, when it comes to black holes, space has a few different sizes.

04:24Small, super huge, and something in the middle.

04:27The small ones are called stellar-mass black holes.

04:31They're around 5 to 50 times heavier than our Sun.

04:34The giant ones are called supermassive black holes.

04:37Makes sense.

04:38They're millions or even billions of times heavier than the Sun.

04:42They usually hang out in the middle of galaxies.

04:45And then, there's the mysterious kind in between, called intermediate-mass black holes.

04:52Those are like the missing link of black holes.

04:54Scientists are pretty sure they should exist, but we barely know anything about them, like where they came from, how they grow, or what they're made of.

05:04Good news!

05:05That mystery might finally be getting solved.

05:08Thanks to several new studies, scientists now have some exciting new clues.

05:13Researchers have found waves in space, which are called gravitational waves, that seem to come from black holes smashing into each other.

05:21And not just any black holes, but ones that are 100 to 300 times heavier than the Sun.

05:27Which may mean that they're those mysterious mid-sized black holes.

05:32Plus, those are the biggest black hole collisions we've ever recorded on Earth.

05:37Black holes are like space fossils.

05:39Super old history clues.

05:41And those newly discovered black holes could tell us about the first stars that ever lit up the Universe.

05:47The problem lies in the fact that our tools on Earth, like LIGO, which stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory,

05:57only catch a tiny moment of these black holes crashing together.

06:01Literally, just a split second.

06:03That makes it tough to figure out where those medium-sized black holes come from.

06:08So, scientists have a new plan.

06:10One scientific lab is getting ready for a future space mission called LISA, short for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.

06:19It's a cool space project by NASA and the European Space Agency, launching in the late 2030s.

06:26LISA will float in space and be able to catch the whole story of black hole crashes, not just the final boom.

06:33It will track black holes years before they crash into each other.

06:37And, if all goes well, we might finally figure out where these mysterious black holes come from and learn even more about how our Universe began.

06:47So, you might be wondering about how LISA will do it.

06:51Remember we talked about ripples dashing through space called gravitational waves?

06:56Black holes crashing into each other could send them out.

06:59Well, LISA is being built to listen for such waves.

07:02It'll float in space and look for all kinds of cosmic shake-ups.

07:06Not just huge ones, but also smaller black holes spinning around giant ones.

07:11Now, why do gravitational waves matter?

07:14A lot of space stuff is too dark to see with regular telescopes, since no light comes from it at all.

07:21But gravitational waves don't care about light.

07:24They go through everything, telling us about the secrets hiding in the dark parts of the Universe.

07:29By studying them, scientists hope to learn about things we've never seen before, like black holes, or what really happened at the very start of the Universe.

07:39And maybe even things we don't know exist yet.

07:43LISA will help us figure out how the Universe began, how it's changing, and what it's made of.

07:50Now, getting back to those black hole collisions, finding them isn't easy.

07:54But researchers have come up with a smart solution.

07:57They're using artificial intelligence to make sure the signals from space aren't messed up by noise from Earth or the machines themselves.

08:05This work was part of a project focused on combining AI with space science.

08:11Scientists are getting more confident that intermediate-mass black holes, the ones in between small and supermassive, are real.

08:18And they might be some of the most exciting things we can study using gravitational waves, both from Earth and from space.

08:26So, the next big step?

08:28Looking to the Moon.

08:30Future detectors placed on the lunar surface could be even better at catching certain types of space waves,

08:36especially ones that Earth-based machines might miss.

08:39That would help scientists figure out where those black holes dwell in space.

08:44Besides this research, scientists are also planning human exploration of the Moon.

08:49They're helping NASA choose the best spots for future missions, focusing on big science goals like solar physics, space weather, and how the Universe works.

09:00Right now is a super exciting time not just for studying black holes, but also for connecting space exploration and science.

09:07That's it for today.

09:09So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

09:14Or, if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!

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