showingthin.gs
YOUR NEXT DISCOVERY/SpaceFollow your curiosity
Massive Star Goes Out With a Whimper Instead of a Bang (Artist's Concept)
NASA / JPL · Reuse terms

Space / 2017-05-25

Massive Star Goes Out With a Whimper Instead of a Bang (Artist's Concept)

Massive Star Goes Out With a Whimper Instead of a Bang (Artist's Concept)

NASA's image library records Massive Star Goes Out With a Whimper Instead of a Bang (Artist's Concept).

WHY IT’S INTERESTING

Every second a star somewhere out in the universe explodes as a supernova. But some extremely massive stars go out with a whimper instead of a bang. When they do, they can collapse under the crushing tug of gravity and vanish out of sight, only to leave behind a black hole. The doomed star N6946-BH1 was 25 times as massive as our sun. It began to b

SERENDIPITYA little unexpected
FamiliarWeird

A CLOSER LOOK

Every second a star somewhere out in the universe explodes as a supernova. But some extremely massive stars go out with a whimper instead of a bang. When they do, they can collapse under the crushing tug of gravity and vanish out of sight, only to leave behind a black hole. The doomed star N6946-BH1 was 25 times as massive as our sun. It began to brighten weakly in 2009. But, by 2015, it appeared to have winked out of existence. By a careful process of elimination, based on observations by the Large Binocular Telescope and NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, researchers eventually concluded that the star must have become a black hole. This may be the fate for extremely massive stars in the universe. This illustration shows the final stages in the life of a supermassive star that fa

Explore NASA's original image record for credits and available downloads.

FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE

NASA Image and Video LibraryMassive Star Goes Out With a Whimper Instead of a Bang (Artist's Concept)

Original explanation based on the sources above. Images carry their own reuse terms.