A massive star that had been discovered in 2001 and studied by astronomers for more than ten years, has suddenly disappeared from the universe.
The massive star, so named because its mass is at least 10 times that of our sun, was inside the Kinman dwarf galaxy, belonging to the constellation Aquarius and located about 75 million light-years away.
The enormous distance Kinman is does not allow astronomers to see their individual stars directly, but they can detect the footprints left by their presence.
During the entire time that the missing star was studied, it emitted light 2.5 million times brighter than that of the Sun.
The first alarm signal sounded in 2019, when astronomers noticed that the spectrum and brightness of the star had disappeared from astronomical records.
And then the astronomers confirmed that the powerful light it was emitting had gone out and concluded with surprise that it had disappeared.
Hypothesis
The explanations that astronomers are considering are hypothetical. It could be that the star had lost some of its brightness and was finally obscured by stardust.
Another hypothesis is that it collapsed into a black hole without producing a supernova, something unusual in astronomical observation.
Astronomers already knew that the star was at a late stage in its evolution, but this possible outcome was not expected. This is why they consider that they have witnessed the death of one of the most massive stars in the local universe.
Protocols
The discovery of the disappearance of the star followed the strictest protocols.
The approach was made with a technological innovation, the Espresso instrument, a sophisticated planet hunter located inside the Very Large Telescope interferometer, at ESO’s Paranal Observatory.
In August last year, they pointed it toward the supermassive star while simultaneously using the VLT’s four 8-meter telescopes, but found no trace of it.
Despite Espresso’s sophisticated technology, astronomers returned to the charge months later with the high-resolution spectroscopy X-shooter instrument also integrated into ESO’s VLT, and again found no trace of the star.
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