Exploring Nine Simultaneous Transients on April 12th, 1950 (2021)

The most striking this about this paper, to me, is that the editor accepted it without a resolution to the mystery! That's a rare treat in the story-hungry world of modern science.

Also, the story about potassium flare stars is good:

https://safe.menlosecurity.com/https://guyworthey.net/2017/0...

Tempted to ask some LLMs about the astrophysics of potassium flare stars and see what they dream up.

EDIT searched google for "what is the surface temperature of a potassium flare star", and got this 'AI Overview':

[begins]

A potassium flare star, typically classified as a late K or early M type star, has a surface temperature ranging from around 2,500 to 4,000 Kelvin. This is because flare stars generally fall within the cooler spectrum of stars, appearing orange or red in color due to their lower temperatures.

Key points about potassium flare stars:

* Spectral type: Late K to early M

* Temperature range: 2,500 - 4,000 Kelvin

* Color: Orange to red

* Characteristic: Frequent flares of increased brightness caused by sudden energy release in the stellar atmosphere

[ends]

I think that's about right for flare stars in general. Just not potassium flare stars.

I work on asteroid/comet orbit calculations for my day job. I had not actually seen this paper before, though I have done some detective work in old Palomar images in the past: https://caltech-ipac.github.io/kete/tutorials/palomar.html

I spent a few minutes and downloaded the image frame they cite in the paper and ran it through a similar analysis looking for known asteroids, and there were no known asteroids in that patch of sky at that time (didn't really expect any, as I would expect them to be causing a visible streak over the 10 minutes of exposure). Neat paper though!