Credit: NASA, ESA, NSF’s NOIRLab, Mark Garlick, Mahdi Zamani

This is an artist’s concept of one of brightest explosions ever seen in space. Called a Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT), it shines intensely in blue light and evolves rapidly, reaching peak brightness and fading again in a matter of days, unlike supernovae which take weeks or months to dim. Only a handful of previous LFBOTs have been discovered since 2018. And they all happen inside galaxies where stars are being born. But this illustration shows that Hubble discovered the LFBOT flash seen in 2023 happened between galaxies. This only compounds the mystery of what these transient events are. Because astronomers don’t know the underling process behind LFBOTs, the explosion shown here is purely conjecture based on some known transient phenomenon.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2023-024

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image Use Policy: http://stsci.edu/copyright/