Astronomers are baffled by a strange event in space. Thus, “M31-2014-DS1”, observed in the neighboring galaxy for 10 years, has disappeared.
Oku.Azreferring to the website aif.ru, this was stated by American astrophysicists.
This galaxy is said to be the closest to our Milky Way. It is located about 2.5 million light years away. Astronomers have been observing it since 2014. It then became brighter, dimmed between 2016 and 2019, and disappeared completely from the sky in 2023.
This event greatly surprised scientists. Because this star had a mass greater than our Sun and something completely different was expected from it: a supernova explosion. But instead, scientists saw the star simply disappear without any explosion: the collapse of the giant star was not accompanied by a bright glow or “special effects” on a cosmic scale.
American astrophysicists call this event a “failed supernova.” According to their version, this can happen with stars of a certain mass range. Calculations show that the star M31-2014-DS1 in the Andromeda galaxy originally had around 20 solar masses, but by the time it disappeared, it had shrunk to seven masses.
“This means that it had already lost its coverage and had nothing left to shed. The star collapsed without informing the Universe and became invisible, probably becoming a black hole,” the scientists said.
