Hubble Views Bright Outburst Far from Galaxies

A Hubble Space Telescope image of a Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT) designated AT2023fhn, indicated by pointers. It shines intensely in blue light and evolves rapidly, reaching peak brightness and fading again in a matter of days, unlike supernovae which take weeks or months to dim. Only a handful of previous LFBOTs have been discovered since 2018. The surprise is that this latest transient, seen in 2023, lies at a large offset from both the barred spiral galaxy at right and the dwarf galaxy to the upper left. Only Hubble could pinpoint its location. And, the results are leaving astronomers even more confounded because all previous LFBOTs have been found in star-forming regions in the spiral arms of galaxies. It's not clear what astronomical event would trigger such a blast far outside of a galaxy.

About the colours

This image was acquired by the WFC3 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. The color results from assigning a blue hue to a monochromatic (grayscale) image.

About the data

This image was created with Hubble data from proposal: 17238 (A. Chrimes)