To the human eye, the night sky looks calm, except for the moon and some planets. But when you peer into space with a telescope that can scan the entire sky in a few days, it looks like a spectacular cosmic fireworks display. A riot of blasts and flashes radiating across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma rays.
Astronomers are keen to capture these fleeting astrophysical phenomena known as transients. Because these phenomena can reveal a lot about the universe, from how matter behaves in the most extreme conditions to how the universe evolved. And thanks to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, we will see many more of them. When it switches on next year, he is expected to detect 10 million transients overnight.
The problem is that transients can be difficult to understand for untrained observers. First, similar-looking explosions can have different origins, and vice versa, where a single origin can give rise to different astrophysical signatures. That alone can make it difficult to keep track of what is what.
Here’s a brief primer that also serves as a guide to the causes and consequences of these transient illuminations and, in some cases, how they challenge our understanding of the physics that govern the universe. indicate.
stellar flare
Electromagnetic explosions of living stars
Let’s start with the simple things. A stellar flare is an explosion in a star’s atmosphere that causes a flash of intense radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum. For example, when the sun flares, we see a sudden burst of brightness before quickly disappearing…
