[2] Barbary and colleagues report that the spectrum of light emitted from the object does not match known supernova types, and is dissimilar to any known phenomenon in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey database.

Researchers had initially conjectured that SCP 06F6 might be an extremely remote supernova; relativistic time dilation might have caused a 20-day event to stretch out over a period of 100 days.

[7] An analysis by a team from the University of Warwick (Boris Gänsicke et al.) suggests that the light spectrum is "consistent with emission from a cool, carbon-rich atmosphere at a redshift of z~0.14",[5] possibly representing the core collapse and explosion of a carbon star.

[4] Gänsicke's group concurs with Barbary and colleagues that SCP 06F6 may represent "a new class" of celestial object.

[2][5] The analysis of Israeli astronomers of Technion suggests four alternative explanations for SCP 06F6, in plausibility order: the tidal destruction of a carbon-oxygen white dwarf by an intermediate-mass black hole, a type Ia supernova exploding inside the dense stellar wind of a carbon star, an asteroid that was swallowed up by a white dwarf or, least likely, a core-collapse supernova.