A Massive Star Has Seemingly Vanished from Space With No Explanation (vice.com) 161
Astronomers are perplexed by the unexplained disappearance of a massive star located 75 million light years away. From a report: A decade ago, light from this colossal star brightened its entire host galaxy, which is officially known as PHL 293B and is nicknamed the Kinman Dwarf. But when scientists checked back in on this farflung system last summer, the glow of the star -- estimated to be roughly 100 times more massive than the Sun -- had been extinguished. The head-scratching discovery was announced in a study published on Tuesday in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "We were quite surprised when we couldn't find the star," said lead author Andrew Allan, a PhD student at Trinity College Dublin, in a call. "It is a very extreme star, and it has quite a strong wind, so we can distinguish it from the galaxy. That's what we couldn't see in the newer observations."
The mysterious series of events began when Allan and his colleagues imaged the Kinman Dwarf in August 2019, using the ESPRESSO instrument at the Very Large Telescope in Chile. The team initially set out to learn more about massive stars located in galaxies with low metal densities. Given that the starlit Kinman Dwarf had been observed by other astronomers between 2001 and 2011, the team knew that it would be a good target for their research. "Not a lot is understood about stars in those kinds of environments, so that was the main reason we wanted to look," Allan said. "We are interested in massive stars at the end of their lives in those kinds of environments, so we were really just hoping to get a better resolution observation."
The mysterious series of events began when Allan and his colleagues imaged the Kinman Dwarf in August 2019, using the ESPRESSO instrument at the Very Large Telescope in Chile. The team initially set out to learn more about massive stars located in galaxies with low metal densities. Given that the starlit Kinman Dwarf had been observed by other astronomers between 2001 and 2011, the team knew that it would be a good target for their research. "Not a lot is understood about stars in those kinds of environments, so that was the main reason we wanted to look," Allan said. "We are interested in massive stars at the end of their lives in those kinds of environments, so we were really just hoping to get a better resolution observation."
ObStarWars quote (Score:5, Funny)
ObStarWars quote
Han: That's what I'm trying to tell you, kid. It ain't there. It's been totally blown away.
Re:ObStarWars quote (Score:5, Funny)
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Either that or someone just built a Dyson sphere around a star.
Good luck building a Dyson Sphere around an exploding hypernova.
Even the neutrinos would be enough to kill you [xkcd.com].
Point SETI at it... (Score:2)
But was not a nova 10 years earlier, was it? Either way, I'd aim the SETI antennas in that general direction...
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But was not a nova 10 years earlier, was it?
I am not sure what your point is. Are you suggesting that there was a Dyson Sphere, then it got blown away by the hypernova, and now the star has disappeared because the Dyson Sphere has been reconstructed?
That is completely implausible. A hypernova of this size results in the nuclear detonation of about a hundred quintillion cubic miles of hydrogen. Even a Dyson Sphere made of Scrith [wikipedia.org] could not survive. All habitable star systems out far beyond 10 LY would be sterilized.
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I'm suggesting, the Dyson Sphere was completed around it in the last 10 years (minus 75 million, of course), and "now" (75 million years ago) instead of the energy escaping to be observed by us, it is captured by the civilization, that built it.
Again, the star inside it remains burning as before, we're just not seeing any light of it, because most (all?) of the energy is captured by the sphere.
And that's why I suggest, SETI antennas be pointed at it — ma
Re: Point SETI at it... (Score:2)
We'd still capture just as much heat glow.
As long as they did not find a way to cheat thermodynamics/entropy, they are bound to radiate away heat. (Isaac Arthurn said so, in a video, as far as I remember.)
If they *did* find a way, then they can time travel and play with universes and black holes and spacetime as if they were concertinas, and all bets are off anyway.
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They may be bound to radiate away heat. However, it's not guaranteed that they will radiate the heat away in our direction. They could conceivably cool the outer skin of the sphere, concentrating the heat and radiating it away directionally from certain points. The major liability of this approach is that the resulting thermal exhaust ports are highly vulnerable to proton torpedoes fired by lone fighter craft.
Also, you don't necessarily need to cheat thermodynamics or entropy in order to avoid radiating hea
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Yup, or as Arthur C. Clarke famously put it
Imagine going a 100 years back in time and trying to explain the concept of a modern smartphone, let alone the internet to someone. Like sure the smart ones will get the general idea
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This is over my head but: what if the star's energy is all converted into mechanical energy? Would the Dyson sphere still need to radiate heat?
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My thermodynamics may be rusty, but the theoretical efficiency of Carnot's Cycle is (Thigh - Tlow)/Thigh. If that Thigh is, indeed, very high (we're talking star-surface levels), and Tlow is at — or very close to — absolute zero, which is quite achievable in space too, then the efficiency is almost 100% and there is very little heat escaping the hypothetical sphere.
Too little for us to detect 75 million light years away...
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Bright enough to light up its native galaxy, bright enough to be specifically pointed out from ANOTHER galaxy. That kind of energy is something you'd pretty much only see with a super/hypernova.
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Either way, I'd aim the SETI antennas in that general direction...
I find this amusing because it assumes that a civilization that has such advanced technology as to be able to build a dyson sphere would not have progressed beyond using modulated radio waves to communicate. And, even if the hadn't, it assumes that their data compression systems would not have advanced beyond where to us, it would appear to be completely random noise.
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What nova? Where did you get the idea there was a hypernova from? It's not the article, which explicitly states there was no sign of a supernova (if there had been, we'd still see the glowing remnants).
Re:ObStarWars quote (Score:4, Insightful)
Either that or someone just built a Dyson sphere around a star.
If you can build one of those in less than 10 years, you probably don't need one.
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Its the Primes - someone finally noticed them. Look for this happening to a second star close by to the first one soon.
Re: ObStarWars quote (Score:2)
I look forward to meeting my new cosmic overlord, MorningLightMountain!
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Or the "star" was actually a Bussard Ramjet (which just happened to be pointing in our direction) which has since arrived at its destination and shut down....
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Star Wars ? REALLY ? (Score:2)
. . .isn't it obvious ? Galactus ***ATE*** it. . . (grin)
warp speed! (Score:2)
No, not blown away.
Rather, what we see is limited by light speed.
Rather clearly, it is approaching now at warp speed. By the amount of time it hasn't been visible, we can calculate time until incineration!
I'm not saying it was the History Channel (Score:5, Funny)
But, maybe the History Channel is behind this?
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Daleks, Cybermen, the Borg, Q, Shadows, Vorlons... Perhaps a rouge planet is just eclipsing its light.
Re:I'm not saying it was the History Channel (Score:5, Funny)
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It's more likely that your mom is in front of it.
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It's more likely corona (Score:2)
Vanishing star? (Score:5, Funny)
Those damned double-headed Pierson's Puppeteers at it again!
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Re:Vanishing star? (Score:4, Interesting)
direct collapse black holes might be the culprit
Even with 100 solar masses, this star is too small.
DCBH are theorized to form from gas clouds exceeding 100000 solar masses.
Smaller masses can collapse, but most of their mass is blown away into the halo rather than falling into the resulting BH.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Gravitational_collapse [wikipedia.org]
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How is 100 solar masses too small?
My google foo says the smallest black hole is 6.3 solar masses.
1. Plenty of mass to form a black hole.
2. Any other explanation seems unlikely.
3. A 100 solar mass object could easily swallow something with 20 - 50 solar masses. Instant black hole.
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How is 100 solar masses too small?
It isn't too small to form a black hole.
But it is MUCH too small to form a DCBH.
A 100 solar mass object could easily swallow something with 20 - 50 solar masses. Instant black hole.
That would blow the other 50-80 solar masses out into the interstellar medium. So not a DCBH.
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The star could have encountered another black hole. If they collide head on, there is no way any energy can escape.
Re:Vanishing star? (Score:4, Informative)
The star could have encountered another black hole. If they collide head on, there is no way any energy can escape.
Yes there is. Most of the mass of the star would be blown into space.
As the mass of the star falls into the black hole, but WAY before it reaches the event horizon, it would be compressed enough to trigger nearly complete H-H fusion. As the inner layers fused and detonated they would blow off the outer layers.
As the mass fell further, angular momentum of the plasma would cause enormous amounts of EM radiation (many solar masses worth). The halo would be ionized plasma and would be opaque to EM, so it would absorb the energy and be pushed away at extreme velocity.
Finally, as the cores merged, enormous amounts of gravitational waves would be generated. When GW150914 merged, 3 solar masses of gravitational energy was radiated away in the last 20 milliseconds. During those 20 milliseconds, it was radiating more energy than the rest of the Universe combined. That happened 1.4 billion light-years from here.
Kinmen Dwarf is 20 times closer so a merger would be 400 times as intense when detected on earth. There is no way we would have missed it.
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Except that since we're talking about a *star* that was there but now apparently is not, the theoretical figures for a direct collapse black hole (which happens *before* a star is able to form) aren't relevant.
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Dyson Sphere (Score:4, Funny)
Come on, I can't be the only one thinking it.
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My first thought was Mantrid.
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Re:Dyson Sphere (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, but a 100 solar mass star near the end of its life is probably not a great candidate for building a Dyson sphere around. I'd think it would be mostly red dwarf stars, with their incredibly long lives, that would get the Dyson treatment. But who knows, maybe they used mass lifter technology to strip away a lot of the star's mass, to use to build the sphere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Probably... or maybe it is just is the star within reach or that meets other criteria.
A common mistake is assuming a technology set which can accomplish things ours cannot suddenly has no limitations or rules. That wouldn't be a given, we just wouldn't know what the limits or requirements would be. It is quite likely there are other models which provide solutions that seem quite far out of reach from our own perspective which would contain limitations that our own does not making some of our own technologie
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A common mistake is assuming a technology set which can accomplish things ours cannot suddenly has no limitations or rules. That wouldn't be a given, we just wouldn't know what the limits or requirements would be. It is quite likely there are other models which provide solutions that seem quite far out of reach from our own perspective which would contain limitations that our own does not making some of our own technologies highly advanced from those perspectives. Especially if what led to the fundamental differences in models was some primitive naturally occurring behavior in our environment fundamental to our most basic assumptions and reasoning.
Indeed every discovery and advance we have made all throughout history has come with a new set of limitations. Personally I would consider it a law of nature.
Science tells me there are ultimately limits to the limits, but I'm not completely convinced.
Re:Dyson Sphere (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but a 100 solar mass star near the end of its life is probably not a great candidate for building a Dyson sphere around. I'd think it would be mostly red dwarf stars, with their incredibly long lives, that would get the Dyson treatment.
Surely even alien government contracts run into delays. It was probably a great candidate star when they started.
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So it only took you 9 years to build a Dyson sphere; your civilization must be amazingly advanced.
Oh, no. It only took us about 6 months to build the Dyson sphere. Completing the environmental impact survey and getting the historic area zoning variance took 8 1/2 year.
Re:Dyson Sphere (Score:5, Funny)
Mr Prosser: But, Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.
Arthur: Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anybody or anything.
Mr Prosser: But the plans were on display
Arthur: On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.
Mr Prosser: That’s the display department.
Arthur: With a torch.
Mr Prosser: The lights had probably gone out.
Arthur: So had the stairs.
Mr Prosser: But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?
Arthur: Yes yes I did. It was on display at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying beware of the leopard.
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Maybe it was the perfect candidate for other reasons.... a young star might develop life on it's planets, a star near the end of life is probably not going to develop the next ET.... Also they may actually desire stars about to go boom. Perhaps they have a way of harnessing that much energy for things we have no clue about yet.
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Not if the purpose of the collector swarm is to collect dense nuclei.
In that case, a red dwarf would barely give you helium and carbon.
If you are building dyson spheres, you are astro-engineering. Where do you think you are gonna get that much metallic mass? The 5 and dime?
No, you are gonna either have to radically invest in compact fusion-- OR, you can harvest the biggest fusion furnaces nature has to offer, and collect the product.
Perhaps the star was "Processed". (assuming of course, you want to abrogat
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Very good point!
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Now, WTH would they want with all that energy? That's a colossal amount to redirect.
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Again, it takes energy away from a star to make anything heavier than iron.
If you want to make platinum, or some other very dense nuclei, you are gonna *NEED* that kind of energy. Where does it all go?
Into your finished product. That's where.
Right now, it is theorized that the vast bulk of these very dense nuclei are the result of collisions between neutron stars and other dense stellar core remnants. There was a recent LIGO event where two neutron stars collided, and the detection allowed astronomers to
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if a civ can build a Dyson sphere, then it will. Whether it's built around their home star or another really depends on the max speed available. FTL/space warping may not be possible. If it is, then likely they will choose a star that has a good output around a host planet, or BUILD one a la Ring World, unless they can beam the energy elsewhere. Ideal stars would put out more energy than a red dwarf. Most main sequence stars are stable for billions of years. Choosing a red dwarf because they're st
Re:Dyson Sphere (Score:4, Informative)
All good points, except that the lifespan of a 100 solar mass star is only about 4 million years not a few billion. And this one was stated to be near the end of its life.
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Nahhh just Glegaks highschool project.
Intergalactic bar billards (Score:2)
Killed ten billion people.
Yes, only scored thirty points too.
Perhaps... (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps someone is having a worse year than we are on Earth?
Re: Perhaps... (Score:2)
The dinosaurs would like to have a word with you, regarding your "worst year" claim.
As would the year 536: https://youtu.be/s3YTfhJmh1I [youtu.be]
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year ain't over yet
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True, it can always be worse.
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Its there. They will find it soon (Score:5, Funny)
Probably running Windows 10 and upgrade failed (Score:5, Interesting)
Either that or just something trivial. However, instantaneous collapse or some other bizarre phenomenon is possible. If it's any of these, then understanding of blue supergiants will change.
The key to new science is never Eureka, it is always "that's odd".
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Any kind of collapse is still going to shed matter, so there should an expanding cloud. Even the most violent supernovas leave a remnant nebula. Other possibilities, like getting eaten by a black hole or neutron star will see the accelerating matter emitting x ray bursts. To just disappear is either an observational error (perhaps something occluding the star) or some pretty exotic event, like getting eaten by a supermassive black hole in one gulp. But such a blackhole should have its own telltales, like gr
Re: Probably running Windows 10 and upgrade failed (Score:2)
But the hole the key goes in IS "Eureka!"!
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or perhaps they just called MS tech support: "have you tried turning it off and back on?"
"one moment. OK . . .. err, *how* do I turn it back on? "
Hitchhiker's Guide... (Score:5, Informative)
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maybe?` (Score:2)
It's those damned photino birds. (Score:2)
It was shadowbanned (Score:2)
for spreading misinformation.
Easy explanation (Score:2)
The Charons took the star away through a wormhole because there were habitable planets circling the star and they wanted to protect them from the Adversary.
I can eat planets! (Score:2)
Two ideas come to mind... (Score:3)
It quietly became a black hole while we were not looking. 100 Solar masses is enough, but it sure seems that there would be some kind of evidence of this left. Creating a black hole is, at least theoretically, a violently energetic thing, so this would be weird..
Some kind of gravitational lensing has disrupted our view of this distant star, refracting the light away from us. I would expect this to be temporary, that it will return eventually after a short time.
Or maybe it's both.... The start collapsed and the change from a distributed mass to a much smaller, nearly point source of gravity has obscured our ability to view the afterglow of the blackhole snapping into existence.
I'm guessing I'm wrong, but this is very interesting..
I guess the monks (Score:3)
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Obvious explanation: (Score:3)
Some little bit of mass crashed into it, bringing it above the black hole treshold.
Otherwise I'd check for any possibly invisible remains. The brightness might just be its explosion phase.
Or a galactic eclipse by something with a well-defined border.
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Black holes tend to be messy eaters, releasing a significant fraction of the mass energy of their meal as radiation as it is compressed in the huge gravity near the hole
Picking nits (Score:4, Interesting)
The galaxy it is in is called the Kinman Dwarf galaxy. The star itself is not a dwarf.
As to what happened to it: One theory is that it collapsed into a black hole. Since the Schwarzschild radius of an object (the radius of its event horizon) is proportional to its mass, it may have collapsed through this radius without its matter reaching a density that would have been 'eventful'. It just sort of winked out of existence from our point of view.
Praxis? (Score:2)
Sounds like the Klingons have been over-mining again!
The lawless Giliac trash are to blame for this! (Score:2)
Call the Enterprise (Score:2)
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/2/2d/1x03_One_of_Our_Planets_Is_Missing_title_card.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160710185932&path-prefix=en [nocookie.net]
Skyfall (Score:2)
I think another planet teleported around it, now the inhabitants are getting jewels falling from the sky.
Construction (Score:2)
I recall reading about that in the cellar of the local planning office in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.'
Tar (Score:2)
Looks like Doctor Who needed a new overpowered star for his tardis.
What happens when you close up the two halves... (Score:2)
... of a Dyson Sphere.
Ships (Score:2)
It tried. We didn't care. It moved on. (Score:2)
Sometimes the universe is like that. It could be speeding to us at the speed of light right now about to kill everything we know and we couldn't stop it, either.
Explanation? (Score:2)
China censored it. (Score:2)
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Oh, were you going to eat that? Sorry, I thought you had finished.
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To be fair, I like my overlords to have some depth to their evil. Not just being evil for the sake of it.
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This star seems too big to be in the range of massive stars whose final death march to neutron star or black hole is effectively interrupted. But if it is, there should still be a remnant "neon nova". It could be that they just need to put some more observational time into that system to see if they can spot the remnant. If it did leave a white dwarf, then that is going to increase the range of massive stars that can somehow avoid final core collapse.