The this star, made before she disappeared with a telescope “Hubble”
photo: PA Media

She was 2.5 million times brighter than the Sun.

Scientists working at the European southern Observatory in the Atacama desert in Northern Chile, discovered the disappearance of a large unstable stars in the dwarf galaxy Kinman, BBC reports.

“One of the most massive stars in the nearby Universe just quietly disappeared into the night” – described his impressions astronomer Jose Grau.

One hypothesis suggests that the star has lost brightness and was closed to observers of cosmic dust.

Another suggestion, especially have excited scientists – that it imploded into a black hole, not before it became a supernova.

Astronomers used to observe the Very large telescope in Chile
photo: ESO

“If that is so, – said the head of the research group of Andrew Allan of Trinity College in Dublin, we first see how such a massive star ends its century like that.“

Andrew Allan and his colleagues from Ireland, Chile and the United States engaged in the study of mega stars and their development, and this previously-studied object in the galaxy of Kinman seemed to them suitable for observation.

For the star different groups of astronomers have closely observed from 2001 to 2011 and came to the conclusion that she was in the final stage of its evolution.

According to scientists, the star before its disappearance could look like in this picture
photo: AFP

Sending Very large telescope (VLT) on a distant galaxy, the astronomers, to their astonishment, discovered that the stars on the ground there!

The results of their work published on 30 June in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (“the Monthly magazine of the Royal astronomical society”).

She was 2.5 million times brighter than the Sun

Dwarf galaxy of Kinmen is located in the constellation of Aquarius is about 75 million light-years from Earth – too far away to distinguish individual stars. But you can see the signs of the existence of some of them.

The light from the galaxy consistently pointed to the presence in it of variable blue giant star is about 2.5 million times brighter than the Sun.

Stars of this type are unstable, the brightness and range are subject to rapid change.

Last year, scientists found no specific evidence of the presence of the blue giant.

“It is most unusual to see such a massive star has disappeared otherwise than becoming in a supernova with the accompanying brightest flash light,” says Andrew Allen.

For the first time scientists have discovered the lack of stars still August 2019, when researched this area of sky using the 8-meter telescope VTL and the newest supersensitive spectrograph ESPRESSO.

After a few months they have researched this area of the Universe using the same telescope and shirokolanovka spectrograph X-shooter. Signs of the existence of blue stars, which again was not found.

A period of high activity

The researchers compared their findings with archival data observations of galaxy Kinman in 2002 and 2009. Apparently, blue giant experienced a period of high activity ended sometime between 2011 and 2019.

Bright blue giants often end their existence as supernovae. In this case, the star could not have exploded and collapsed into itself, becoming a black hole. Scientists like to observe is not necessary.

And it’s not a supernova explosion, this is explosion rocks atop the peak of Cerro Amazones in Chile. With this began the construction of the largest in the Land of ELT telescope
photo: European Southern Observatory HO

To finally confirm this hypothesis, more research will be required.

The European southern Observatory is the most productive in the world ground for astronomical research, which has a unique instrument.

In 2025, in Paranal in the Atacama desert will earn a 39-metre Extremely large telescope (Extremely Large Telescope, ELT). It will allow to obtain images with a greater degree of detail than the orbital telescope “Hubble”.

The program involves 16 European countries, Chile and Australia.