Without leaving a trace, a giant star disappeared from space – Infofueguina

Scientists detected in the Kinman galaxy a star 2.5 million and a half times brighter than the sun 75 million light-years away, in the constellation Aquarius.

For ten years, several teams of astronomers observed what they thought were the last moments in the life of a giant star.

When they are massive, they usually close their life cycle in the cosmos in all its expression, with an explosion that makes them supernova. But scientists, when orienting their telescope to obtain the latest images of this great star, did not find it. The star had disappeared without a trace!

The efforts of experts from around the world did not work

When experts from Ireland, Chile and the US peered into the Very Large Telescope (VLT) administered by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in the Atacama desert, they were stumped. We were surprised to discover that the star had disappeared, “says astronomer Andrew Allan, who led the study for Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

There was an effort to identify the star constantly, with no results. They first turned the ESPRESSO instrument toward the area and used all four VLT telescopes simultaneously. Months later, they tested the detection ability of the X-shooter device without positive results.

–