The artistic impression of the star that disappeared without a trace.
ESO / L. Calçada
Of all the things you’d expect to lose sight of, a star 100 times bigger than our sun is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. However, scientists are surprised to discover that a massive star has somehow faded into nothing, seemingly unexplained.
In a new study, published in the Royal Astronomical Society’s Monthly Notices on Tuesday, astronomers recorded a gigantic star, nicknamed Kinman Dwarf, in galaxy PHL 293B, 75 million light-years from Earth. Scientists were interested in learning more about PHL 293B’s low metallicity environment and hoped to see Kinman glowing.
But the star was gone.
The star no longer illuminates the galaxy. In fact, it is no longer illuminating anything at all. She just … left. Despite being most recently seen in 2011, when the team of scientists used the Espresso instrument at Chile’s Very Large Telescope, they were unable to locate the star. Using an additional instrument called the X-Shooter to determine where the star had gone, the team was unable to find it again.
There was also no evidence that the star had become a supernova, which could have explained its disappearance. So the question remains: What happened to the star?
There are two hypotheses: either the star is still there, but its light is much dimmer and obscured by a dusty cloud of debris, or the star “collapsed into a massive black hole without producing a bright supernova.”
Either way, the implications for such an unexpected absence are far-reaching, especially when considering whether this could occur more frequently.
As the report says: “Since most of such events in deep surveys will be much weaker than PHL 293B and will be located much farther, a detailed analysis of this object in the local Universe provides an important benchmark for understanding evolution. of recent times. massive stars in low metallic environments and their remains. “
The study’s lead author Andrew Allan told Vice that astronomers plan to examine the Dwarf Kinman with the Hubble Space Telescope in an attempt to find some evidence of the monster star’s disappearance.
“By just comparing a before-and-after photo of the galaxy, we hope to be able to choose, first of all, the star itself, and then perhaps what happened to the star and why it disappeared,” he said.
