A Mysterious ‘Heatwave’ Blast From a Massive Star Was Detected on Earth

A Mysterious ‘Heatwave’ Blast From a Massive Star Was Detected on Earth

4 years ago
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https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/939k55/a-mysterious-heatwave-blast-from-a-massive-star-was-detected-on-earth

Baby stars, just like baby humans, may experience rapid growth spurts in their infancies, according to one theory of star formation. But it has been challenging for scientists to directly observe this process because baby stars tend to be obscured behind the gas and dust in their parent molecular clouds.

Enter G358-MM1, a massive protostar located some 22,000 light years from Earth. In January 2019, astronomers witnessed a rapid flare of intense “masers,” which are like lasers in the microwave part of the light spectrum, around this maturing star. The burst indicates that this baby star had sent out a powerful “heatwave,” an event rarely captured by astronomers, according to a recent study in Nature Astronomy.