Astronomers say a “hyperburst” nuclear explosion within a neutron star could explain its strange behaviour – but the conditions required to create the explosion are so rare that we will probably never see one again
Space 11 February 2022
An artist’s illustration of an explosion in space
Shutterstock/mik ulyannikov
Astronomers think they have found evidence for an extremely powerful nuclear explosion in space – one so rare that we are unlikely to ever see its like again.
The explosion seems to have taken place inside a strange neutron star located 140,000 light-years from Earth called MAXI J0556–332. Neutron stars are the remnant cores of larger stars that have exploded in supernovas, leaving city-sized objects that contain up to twice the mass of our sun. MAXI J0556–332 was discovered in 2011, …
