Planetary Collision: 2 Icy Exoplanets Crash in Space Produce Blaze of Light, Enormous Plumes of Dust

Two icy exoplanets collided, and the incident was spotted by chance. It was the first time astronomers reportedly witnessed the afterglow of such a cosmic crash.

Cosmic Crash 1,800 Light-Years Away

Two massive exoplanets collided around a sun-like star, igniting a blaze of light and sending huge plumes of dust into the air. The incident was 1,800 light-years away and the astronomers only noticed it by chance.

The constellation of telescopes that first noticed the star fading at visible wavelengths gave the star its designation, ASASSN-21qj. According to researchers, the most likely cause of this dimming star was a collision between two ice giant exoplanets that resulted in an infrared light that NASA's NEOWISE satellite saw. This space telescope is looking for asteroids and comets that threaten Earth.

Its discovery was made possible by the flash of light and an alert amateur astronomer who noticed something peculiar in a social media post. The hobbyist discovered the system's brightness had doubled about three years earlier before starting to decline over time when observing the light curve of the parent star. It turned out that the dust cloud produced by the planetary collision was responsible for this dimming.

Dr. Matthew Kenworthy, a co-author of the new study from Leiden University in the Netherlands, admitted that he was completely unprepared for the observation. They only started observing the star with a network of other telescopes when they first shared the visible light curve of it with other scientists.

An astronomer on social media noted that the star's infrared brightness increased more than a thousand days before its optical brightness declined. He immediately recognized that it was a strange occurrence.

Dr. Simon Lock of the University of Bristol, co-author of the study, added that their calculations and computer models show that the luminous material's size, temperature, and duration are consistent with the collision of two ice giant exoplanets.

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Vela Pulsar Releases Highest-Energy Gamma Rays

An international team of researchers recently used deep observations with H.E.S.S. to find the highest energy gamma rays from the dead star Vela Pulsar. It was found that the gamma rays released by Vela Pulsar had an amazing energy level of 20 tera-electronvolts, or roughly ten trillion times the energy of visible light.

Scientists could not fully comprehend the intense energy that struck the Earth because it was so powerful. If exposed to the powerful gamma rays, humans would reportedly be scalded to death. According to co-author Christo Venter from North-West University in South Africa, the radiation is roughly 200 times more energetic than any radiation from the previously identified object. This extremely high-energy component's phase intervals match the one observed in the GeV range. The spinning emission pattern must endure even if the electrons travel past the magnetosphere to reach this energy.

The discovery defies their prior knowledge of pulsars, per Arache Djannati-Atai of the Astroparticle & Cosmology (APC) laboratory in France and the study's lead author. He added that they must reevaluate their knowledge of how these natural accelerators function. The usual concept, which suggests that particles are accelerated along magnetic field lines inside or just outside the magnetosphere, cannot adequately explain the results.