In January 2002 , astronomer discover a massive blowup come fromV838Monocerotis . They ab initio guess they were witnessing a supernova , but after the initial flash of light start to dip ( as gestate ) , it began to brighten again in infrared wavelengths at the offset of March . After that brightening pass off , another one encounter in April . While astronomer were sure they were n’t witness a supernova , they were n’t quite certain what it actually was .

Now the Hubble team have released an absolutely extraordinary time - lapsing video of the event . Check it out here , and verify you go full screen .

Nothing like this has ever been maintain before , making it hard to rule out many of the possible explanations . There are five hypotheses put fore in the lit about what is cause the event , and they really do n’t have much in vernacular .

Some scientists conceive V838 Monocerotis was a supernova , justa reasonably unique one . This idea does n’t have much supporting , since the stars in that country are too new and too massive to have cause this case of effect . Another unlikely account is that a buy the farm lead ’s core exploded into a helium flash , like what happened inSakurai ’s Object . Again , this headliner is too untried for athermal pulseto be the most probable scenario .

Another example propose the helium show off , but as athermonuclear eventin which a monumental mavin would have been able-bodied to survive . While this does suit within the necessary age of the star , the star ’s mass might not stick out this idea .

Inplanetary capture events , star commence to consume planets in their organization . For a very large major planet , getting pulled apart would increase clash between the solar atmosphere and the planet . There could be enough vim generated to sparkle deuterium unification , which releases large amounts of vim , such as was escort in the detonation . These types of events are predicted to be about five times more vulgar for star like V838 Monocerotis than for superstar like our Sun .

Another potential explanation is an consequence known as amergeburst , in which two chief sequence stars clash . This hypothesis is indorse by computer modeling , and the young person of the whizz systems in that realm could provide the unstable orbits ask for mavin to unite in that fashion .

[ Hat tip : Jesus Diaz , Gizmodo ]