Fast blue optical transient
Astronomers recognize phenomenon they call a fast blue optical transient or fbot.[1][2][3] These phenomenon seemed to resemble the supernovas, but brighter.[4]
One instance suggested these objects can create multiple events as bright as supernovas.[5] One explanation is that these instances reflect a supermassive black hole absorbing an entire star.
AT2018COW, the first fbot to be discovered, was ten times as bright as typical supernova.[4][6]
AT2020MRF, the fifth fbot to be discovered, was found to be particularly bright in the X-ray spectrum.[7]
References
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Anton Petrov (2023-04-13). "Major Discovery About Mysterious FBOT Supernova" (video). What da math. Retrieved 2026-08-06 – via YouTube.
My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about new discoveries about mysteries FBOTs.
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Anton Petrov (2026-08-04). "What are FBOTs? The Mysterious Cosmic Explosions Rewriting Astronomy" (video). What da math. Retrieved 2026-08-06 – via YouTube.
My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about FBOT explosions and why they make no sense
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Claudia Gutiérrez; Seppo Mattila; Peter Lundqvist; Luc Dessart; Santiago González-Gaitán; Peter Jonker; Subo Dong; Deanna Coppejans; Ping Chen; Panagiotis Charalampopoulos; Nancy Elias-Rosa; Tom Reynolds; Christopher Kochanek; Morgan Fraser; Andrea Pastorello; Mariusz Gromadzki; Jack Neustadt; Stefano Benetti; Erkki Kankare; Tuomas Kangas; Rubina Kotak; Maxmilian Stritzinger; Thomas Wevers; Bing Zhang; David Bersier; Subhash Bose; David Buckley; Raya Dastidar; Anjasha Gangopadhyay; Aleksandra Hamanowicz; Juna Kollmeier; Jirong Mao; Stephen Potter; Encarni Romero-Colmenero; Mridweeka Singh; Auni Somero; Giacomo Terreran; Petri Vaisanen; Lukasz Wyrzykowski (2024-02-07). "A luminous, fast blue optical transient from a stellar tidal disruption event by an intermediate-mass black hole". Springer Science and Business Media LLC. doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-3911460/v1. Cite journal requires
|journal=(help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ↑ 4.0 4.1
Sonja Panjkov (2025-01-30). "Is AT2018cow the Black Sheep of Transient Astronomy?". astrobites. Archived from the original on 2025-05-19. Retrieved 2026-08-06.
AT2018cow, or ‘The Cow’, is not your typical transient, such as a supernova, fast radio burst, or tidal disruption event, but lies in a class of its own, known as luminous fast blue optical transients, or LFBOTs for short. While the spectra of LFBOTs may look similar to supernovae, their light curves, which track luminosity or brightness as a function of time, fade much faster, making the precise mechanism behind this peculiar class of transient unclear.
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Anton Petrov (2023-04-13). "Something Powerful Exploded Over and Over Again and It Makes No Sense" (video). What da math. Retrieved 2026-08-06 – via YouTube.
My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about an unexplained repeating explosion called FBOT (Fast Blue Optical Transient) that has no explanation.
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Jeanette Kazmiercza (2019-01-10). "Holy Cow! Mysterious Blast Studied with NASA Telescopes". NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Archived from the original on 2026-07-24. Retrieved 2026-08-06.
A brief and unusual flash spotted in the night sky on June 16, 2018, puzzled astronomers and astrophysicists across the globe. The event - called AT2018cow and nicknamed "the Cow" after the coincidental final letters in its official name - is unlike any celestial outburst ever seen before, prompting multiple theories about its source.
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"Astronomers Find Most Luminous "Cow" to Shine in X-Rays". California Institute of Technology. 2022-01-10. Retrieved 2026-08-06.
Another member of the new "Cow" class of supernova explosions has been discovered—the brightest one seen in X-rays to date. The new event, dubbed AT2020mrf, is only the fifth found so far belonging to the Cow class of supernovae. The group is named after the first supernova found in this class, AT2018cow, whose randomly generated name just happened to spell the word 'cow.'