If Margutti's team turns out to be correct, the implications would be enormous, providing a more complete understanding of the birth of compact bodies. They discovered that it was emitting a slew of radiation and that high-energy X-rays, known as hard X-rays, revealed the Cow was likely a "compact body" such as a black hole consuming material or a neutron star, a type of failed black hole that is incredibly dense and has an extreme gravitational force. But the Cow didn't produce the same amount of cosmic ejecta as is usually seen, which meant Margutti's team were able to dive in to the "engine" of the explosion and poke around.Īs a result, the team were also able to study the Cow's profile for its first 100 days, long after the initial light faded. Typically, a supernova results in an opaque bubble of debris that prevents astronomers from seeing and investigating what is happening within. The reason Margutti and her team believe the explosion was stellar in origin is because of the unusual X-ray observations the saw.
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