A mysterious Andromeda star vanished without exploding, leaving scientists debating black hole formation or stellar merger.
Astronomers are puzzled by a cosmic puzzle that takes place in the Andromeda Galaxy because a gigantic yellow supergiant star has suddenly disappeared without any warning. The star named M31-2014-DS1 showed itself to observers in 2014 but went missing by 2018 without producing the spectacular supernova event which scientists expect from that type of star.
One team of researchers, using observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Chandra X-ray Observatory, believes the star may have collapsed directly into a black hole. A failed supernova shows itself as a rare occurrence, which happens when a star exhausts its fuel supply but does not undergo an explosive event. The star's core begins to collapse inward without making any sounds.
Supporting this idea is the discovery of an extremely red source at the star’s former location. This faint glow is just 7-8% as bright as the original star and is surrounded by a vast shell of dust stretching up to 200 times the Earth-Sun distance. Scientists think this red light could be leftover material falling back into a newly formed black hole.
However, the failed supernova theory has major holes. If a black hole had formed, astronomers would expect to see X-rays from material being pulled into it, but none were detected. Even more puzzling, the red source’s brightness hasn’t faded significantly over time, contradicting predictions for fallback accretion.
A second research team offers a different explanation: a stellar merger. Two stars collided with each other, which created massive dust quantities that now block visibility into the area, according to their research. The actual source of the star's disappearance might be concealed by this dense dust cloud.
Both studies, currently shared on the preprint server arXiv, agree on one thing: the story of M31-2014-DS1 is far from over.
As the dust clears and future observations roll in, astronomers hope the universe will finally reveal what truly happened to this missing star.
