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Astronomers Witness Vanishing Star Collapse Into a Black Hole in Andromeda Galaxy
A yellow supergiant star in Andromeda vanished from view between 2014 and 2022, collapsing into a black hole of about five solar masses, obscured by gas and dust, researchers found.
- While scanning archival data, astronomers found M31-2014-DS1 in the Andromeda galaxy, a star that brightened then vanished, likely collapsing into a black hole, according to De and his team.
- According to the standard model of stellar death, some massive cores collapse directly into black holes without a supernova, making failed supernovae difficult to catch and their formation uncertain.
- Using JWST and Chandra follow-ups, De's team found M31-2014-DS1 brightened in 2014, then faded sharply, modeling suggested a roughly five-solar-mass black hole cloaked by a 0.1 solar-mass shell.
- Over the next few decades, astronomers will monitor the infrared fade and await X-ray emergence, which could change models of black hole formation and galactic evolution, De says.
- Looking ahead, broader surveys with Vera C. Rubin Observatory and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could help determine if these stars are black holes or stellar mergers, as De told Space.com, `Observations like these are starting to finally change this long-held paradigm that it's only the very massive stars that turn into black holes`.
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Astronomers observe a massive star vanish and turn into a black hole
In the nearby Andromeda Galaxy, a massive star bright enough to stand out for years has gone dark. Not in a blaze of glory. Not in a supernova that would briefly outshine its entire galaxy. It just faded. The object, known as M31-2014-DS1, sits about 2.5 million light-years away in M31. Kishalay De of the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute led the effort to track what happened. The team pulled together data from NASA’s NEOWISE mission and a …
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