Astronomers watch a massive star collapse into a black hole without a supernova
A massive star 2.5 million light-years away simply vanished — and astronomers now know why. Instead of exploding in a supernova, it quietly collapsed into a black hole, shedding its outer layers in a slow-motion cosmic fade-out. The leftover debris continues to glow in infrared light, offering a long-lasting signal of the black hole’s birth. The finding reshapes our understanding of how some of the universe’s biggest stars meet their end.
An illustration of a star that collapsed, forming a black hole. The black hole is at the center, unseen. Surrounding it is a dust shell moving away from the black hole and gas being pulled toward it. Credit: Keith Miller, Caltech/IPAC - SELab Astronomers have directly observed a massive dying star skip a supernova explosion and instead collapse into a black hole. This event provides the most detailed set of observations ever assembled of a star making that transition, giving researchers an unusually complete view of how stellar black holes form.By combining fresh telescope data with more than a decade of archived observations, scientists were able to test and refine long standing theories about how the most massive stars end their lives. Rather than exploding outward in a brilliant supernova, this star's core gave way under gravity and formed a black hole. In the process, its unstable outer layers were gradually pushed outward.
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