--- title: "A Giant Star Appears to Have Winked Out of Existence" description: "When astronomers went to update their models for a giant, bright star, they instead found an empty space where it used to be." date: "2020-06-30" modified: "2020-06-30" authors: - name: "Dan Robitzski" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/giant-star-winked-out-existence" categories: - "Science & Energy" tags: - "space" - "star" - "supernova" - "the digest" --- # A Giant Star Appears to Have Winked Out of Existence ![When astronomers went to update their models for a giant, bright star, they instead found an empty space where it used to be.]() *\Image: Victor Tangermann\* ## Misplaced A gigantic, particularly-bright star just disappeared without a trace. It's an unusual case: The giant star in the nearby Kinman dwarf galaxy, which was 2.5 times brighter than our Sun, had been observed during a decade's worth of observations, *[Gizmodo]()*[ reports](). But when astronomers went to check up on it in 2019, the star had vanished. ## Irish Goodbye Thankfully, the Trinity College Dublin astronomers have some ideas for what could have happened. There are two possibilities that the team threw around [in their research](), published Tuesday in the journal *Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society*. First, the star could have drastically decreased its brightness and is also obscured by a cloud of dust. The second is far more mysterious: It could have died and turned into a black hole without ever exploding in a supernova. If that's the case, it would be the second-ever [failed supernova]() that we know of. ## Missed Opportunity Regardless of which scenario occurred — both are consistent with past observations for the star and computer models — *Gizmodo* reports that the scientists missed out on an opportunity to update the models they'd based on the star. But on the flip side, the opportunity to investigate a vanished star makes up for the loss. "We were all pleasantly surprised to find that the star’s signature was not present in our first observation," lead researcher Andrew Allan told *Gizmodo*. "We initially hoped for a higher-resolution observation that resembled the past observations, which we would use for our models." **READ MORE:** [A Massive Star Has Disappeared Without a Trace]() \[*Gizmodo*\] **More on stars:** *[Two Dead Stars Are Orbiting Each Other’s Corpses Incredibly Fast]()* ## Author Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California. ### Author social links [Twitter]()