Instead of Exploding, Astronomers Just Found a Star That Became a Black Hole Thanks to NASA's Telescope

JAKARTA - Astronomers have discovered a rare space phenomenon. This phenomenon shows a massive star that failed to explode and instead turned into a black hole.

As explained by NASA, this star is named M31-2014-DS1 and is located in the Andromeda galaxy. The galaxy is about 2.5 million light-years from Earth.

Usually, stars with large masses will end their lives with a violent and bright supernova explosion. However, NASA's telescope captured a unique event from the star.

M31-2014-DS1 faded slowly until it finally disappeared. Archival data show that this star had shone very brightly in infrared light in 2014.

However, entering 2023, the light produced appears to fade by more than 10,000 times. The researchers concluded that the increase in infrared light occurs due to the release of the star's outermost layer.

This happens because the core of the star has run out of fuel to withstand the enormous gravitational pressure. It should have triggered a strong shock wave afterwards, but this failed to happen.

Instead of exploding, the star instead experienced a weak shock wave. This caused most of the star's material to collapse into its core.

This material density creates black holes without the occurrence of events such as supernovae. This phenomenon provides a new picture for scientists about how black holes can be born in a very calm way.

The study, published in the journal Science, was supported by years of data from NASA's NEOWISE mission. Astronomers are now beginning to search for other stars that may have a similar fate to M31-2014-DS1.