Scientists find ‘perfect’ explosion in space that ‘makes no sense’

Scientists have spotted a “perfect” explosion in space that they say “makes no sense”.

For years, researchers have been trying to understand the nature of “kilonovae”, the huge explosions that happen when two neutron stars smash into each other. They are among the most powerful explosions in the universe, create the most extreme physical conditions in the cosmos, and in so doing are responsible for everything from black holes to gold.

But much about kilonovae still remains mysterious to scientists. That includes what shape the explosions themselves might be.

Researchers had presumed they were flattened and asymmetrical. That fit both with expectations and models of such explosions.

Now new research claims to have shown that the explosion is in fact a nearly perfect sphere, and is completely symmetrical. Researchers do not know how that is possible and suggest that it must be the result of unknown physics.

“No one expected the explosion to look like this. It makes no sense that it is spherical, like a ball. But our calculations clearly show that it is. This probably means that the theories and simulations of kilonovae that we have been considering over the past 25 years lack important physics,” said Darach Watson, associate professor at the Niels Bohr Institute and second author on the study.