Birth of a Black Hole witnessed:

[beecee]

https://newatlas.com/vanishing-star-skip-supernova-black-hole/49725/

Birth of a black hole witnessed as star vanishes without a bang:

For the first time, astronomers have witnessed a star disappear right before their eyes. Known as N6946-BH1, the star appears to have collapsed into a black hole without the usual flair of a supernova, which not only marks the first time scientists have witnessed the birth of a black hole, but could change our understanding of the life and death of stars.

According to conventional thinking, when a star exhausts its energy supply, it violently ejects most of its matter outwards in a supernova, before collapsing in on itself to form a black hole. But N6946-BH1 has bucked the trend, skipping the supernova stage and quietly collapsing into a black hole. These failed supernovae (or "massive fails", as the team calls them) could help patch some holes in our stellar knowledge.

"The typical view is that a star can form a black hole only after it goes supernova," says Christopher Kochanek, lead researcher on the study. "If a star can fall short of a supernova and still make a black hole, that would help to explain why we don't see supernovae from the most massive stars.

more at link.....

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the paper:

https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/468/4/4968/3098190

The search for failed supernovae with the Large Binocular Telescope: confirmation of a disappearing star:

 

Abstract

We present Hubble Space Telescope imaging confirming the optical disappearance of the failed supernova (SN) candidate identified by Gerke, Kochanek & Stanek. This ∼25 M⊙ red supergiant experienced a weak ∼106 L⊙ optical outburst in 2009 and is now at least 5 mag fainter than the progenitor in the optical. The mid-IR flux has slowly decreased to the lowest levels since the first measurements in 2004. There is faint (2000–3000 L⊙) near-IR emission likely associated with the source. We find the late-time evolution of the source to be inconsistent with obscuration from an ejected, dusty shell. Models of the spectral energy distribution indicate that the remaining bolometric luminosity is >6 times fainter than that of the progenitor and is decreasing as ∼t−4/3. We conclude that the transient is unlikely to be an SN impostor or stellar merger. The event is consistent with the ejection of the envelope of a red supergiant in a failed SN and the late-time emission could be powered by fallback accretion on to a newly formed black hole. Future IR and X-ray observations are needed to confirm this interpretation of the fate for the star.

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Does this bring into question the science of Supernovas? Could extra massive stars actually form a BH at their cores first, without any "rebound" and instead just consume the rest of the inflated star?

Edited June 2, 2018 by beecee

[Silvestru]

Thank you beecee for taking time to post new cool articles. Always choosing interesting/relevant articles.

MVP of the news section.  

[Mordred]

Cool happenings, with that observation thanks for sharing Beecee