Black Hole Sun Disappears in a Flash

A star turned into a black hole before Hubble’s very eyes

While some supernova events are explosive and leave clouds of debris for thousands of years (aka nebula) like SN 1054, the star in question seems to have begun to explode and then had all its gas sucked right back into the black hole at the center. This can happen when the core collapse of the star is especially massive. Rather than exploding, the gas collapses directly into the core of the star.

Only a few of these so called “massive fails” (yes, that’s what they’re calling them) have been spotted, so astronomers are cautious about the results. But this particular star, located in the galaxy NGC 6946, was bright enough to see from 22 million light years away and faded in an instant, suggesting a massive stellar-mass black hole was the driving culprit.

Wow, what were the chances of seeing that?

Better than the original: Haley Reinhart does "Black Hole Sun" with Post Modern Jukebox.



Ravi Shankir's daughter is no slouch either. Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Hockey Girls" up and ready for action.