Astronomers from around the world are looking for the reason why a super-heavy planet has been mysteriously disappeared for years. "It's a huge surprise.
Imaging by the European Observatory // Photo: EPA
Mystery: Scientists and astronomers from all over the world are trying to figure out where a massive planet has gone from being discovered outside the solar system without leaving any signs. It is a blue variable star that was active in the dwarf galaxy far away from the Earth 75 million light years, and 2.5 million times clearer than our sun.
Usually, when a much larger star from our sun is nearing the end of its life, it explodes in a mighty "super-Nova" blast. These explosions are easy to spot, as they stain the sky around them with gas and intense radiation for many light years in each direction. Following the explosion, the dense nucleus of the remaining star may collapse and become a black hole or a neutron star - two of the most massive and mysterious objects in space.
From 2001-2011, a lot of research has been done around this huge star, as these are very rare stars that, due to their size and intensity, also change rapidly and undergo rapid processes. A study around the star indicates that it was. But when the Dublin University PhD student Andrew Allen directed her observation of the giant star in 2019, he simply wasn't there at all.
Researchers feared they had just missed the active giant, so they headed to the European Star Observatory (VLT) to keep track of the distant galaxy, surprisingly the result was completely the same - the star disappeared without exploding or leaving a trail.
"We were terribly surprised, it is very unusual for a giant star of this magnitude to simply disappear without exploding as huge as predicted in research. So we thought we were wrong or maybe a big cloud of dust hiding it," said Andrew Allen, who added "You expect this kind of star It will disappear in a huge explosion and instead what has happened is that the star is gently disappearing into the dark. There may simply be another form here that has not been observed before of turning a star into a black hole. "
Another researcher on the team noted that "this is a huge surprise. We will have to make great efforts towards where the star was to understand what happened there and how it just fades away gently." The latest and most surprising discovery will be explored intensively from 2025, then a large new telescope will be placed in space and one of its first missions will be to find out where the big star has gone.
