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Transient Star phenomena

3 April 2018
Astronomy

This one is at https://phys.org/print441899749.html … astronomers found 72 bright and fast bursts of light – gone within a week (sometimes lasting a month). They were discovered during the Dark Energy Survey Supernova Programme, a global effort to understand dark energy (assuming there is actually something to understand). They have a similar maximum brightness to supernova but they last a fraction of the time. Supernovas can last for many months and are thought to be stars exploding, a paradigm that is under pressure it would seem from these discoveries. Cosmologists keen to circle the wagons are saying these transient novas are stars shedding material 'prior' to a supernova explosion – a sort of halfway house. On the other hand they may have nothing to do with explosions – and all to do with electrical phenomena generated by stars. If so can we expect something similar from our Sun – in the course of time.

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