Supernovae in the Milky Way have been attend by humans since ancientness , and thanks to modern telescopes we have seen plenty of them in other galaxies . Astronomers might have now found something quite new : a supernova exploding in intergalactic space .
As reported in theMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , the objective is believed to be a varlet supernova remnant , the remnant material of a stellar blowup . The peculiarity that realise it the procedural " rogue " is that it ’s located not inside a galaxy where these explosion are common , but on the outskirts of one .
The supernova remnants , named J0624–6948 , are located between the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud , the liberal of our Galax urceolata ’s planet . The Large Magellanic Cloud is settle roughly 130,000 weak - years from us and is seeable to the bare eye from the Southern Hemisphere .
“ The most plausible explanation is that the objective is an intergalactic Supernova Remnant due to an exploded lead that occupy in the big Magellanic Cloud outskirts that had undergo a single - riotous eccentric Ia supernova which demand the explosion of two hotshot orbiting each other , ” lead author Professor Miroslav Filipovic , from Western Sydney University , pronounce in astatement .
When researcher first spotted J0624–6948 , they first thought it was a much - further - away odd radio circle ( ORC ) , peculiar social organisation much heavy than galaxiesthat have recently been in the news . Or , the explanation might have been closer to home .
“ However , we considered other scenarios such as that this object might represent a remainder of the tiptop - flare activity from a nearby Milky Way star ( at only 190 light - yr aside from Sun ) that happened only a few 100 ago , or the premise that it may in fact be a much larger ORC , ” professor Filipovic explained .
There are five known ORCs , and they all look similar . This does n’t appear like that , and the team could n’t get hold a galaxy inside it . If it were as upstage as the other ORCs it would be enormous , and they extend for millions of light - years .
The estimation that this is a rogue supernova is compelling and presently the most likely scenario , base on the observations .
“ What we ’ve potentially then discovered is a unparalleled remnant of supernova that has expand into a subtilize , intergalactic surround — an surroundings that we did n’t expect to find in such an object . Our estimation point to the years of about 2200 to 7100 twelvemonth onetime , ” prof Filipovic tally .
J0624–6948 was first spotted with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder ( ASKAP ) .
