Two Views of a Dying Star (IMAGE)

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Two Views of a Dying Star

Caption

This pair of visible-light and near-infrared Hubble Space Telescope photos shows the giant star N6946-BH1 before and after in vanished out of sight by imploding to form a black hole. The left image shows the 25 solar mass star as it looked in 2007. In 2009, the star shot up in brightness to become over 1 million times more luminous than our sun for several months. But then it seemed to vanish, as seen in the right panel image from 2015. A small amount of infrared light has been detected from where the star used to be. This radiation probably comes from debris falling onto a black hole. The black hole is located 22 million light-years away in the spiral galaxy NGC 6946.

Credit

NASA, ESA, and C. Kochanek (OSU)

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