The star's bizarre "disappearance" may be due to a failed explosion
In recent days, a small video about "about 100 stars disappearing bizarrely in the past half century" became popular on the Internet platform.
The video content roughly found a bizarre phenomenon for astronomers: When they compared the latest starry sky photos of the same area with past photos, they found that a certain star in the area disappeared.
In order to confirm, scientists searched for a large number of astronomical image data from the 1950s to conduct comparative studies, and found that in the past half a century, at least 100 stars disappeared bizarrely and no longer appeared.
Currently, there are multiple explanations for this phenomenon.
Some people think of extraterrestrial life from this, saying that extraterrestrial life may absorb the energy of these stars and then use it for their own use. At this time, the stars seem to disappear in our eyes, but is this really the case?
This is an unknown astrophysical phenomenon
In the universe, stars are one of the most common inhabitants.
"However, the lifespan of stars is not eternal. With the evolution of galaxies, stars will also die, but this process is very slow." said Zhang Peijin, a member of the Chinese Science Writers Association and a PhD in solar physics from the University of Science and Technology of China. The normal cycle of activity is very long. Take the sun, it has existed for billions of years, and may continue to exist for billions of years. It will have small-scale brightening like flares, but it will not be observed by humans. Suddenly become darker or brighter at multiples on the time scale.
Regarding whether the small video content of "about 100 stars disappearing bizarrely in the past half century" is true, Zhang Peijin said that the term "disappearing" is not appropriate, perhaps because they cannot be observed in the optical observation band.
In fact, in 2016, scientists launched related research projects. By comparing the star catalogs and data of the 1950s, researchers found that about 100 stars "disappeared."
Recently, the research team published a paper in the Astrophysical Journal, giving different scientific explanations for this phenomenon.
Martin Lopez Coredoira, a researcher from the Anarias Institute of Astronomy in the Canary Islands, Spain, stated in the above-mentioned paper: "These star'disappearing' events do not show any related aliens. Direct signs of existence. We believe these phenomena are natural phenomena, or more extreme, astrophysics."
Scientists generally believe that the disappearance of stars in a short period of time is an unknown astronomical natural phenomenon. At present, only a variety of speculative explanations can be made from a scientific perspective.
Speculations about the "disappearance" of stars
As mentioned in the above paper, the research team gave four scientific explanations for this phenomenon: celestial bodies occasionally emitted short-term sharp brightening events that were recorded in early sky surveys, and it was in a quiet period during recent sky surveys, so researchers could not observe this phenomenon. Celestial body; the object of observation is a celestial body that is rapidly dimming; the reason for the sudden disappearance of the star comes from the instrument itself, such as the defect point on the eyepiece; the celestial body is moving so fast that it cannot be observed in its original position when it is observed again .
Of course, there is another guess, that is, a failed supernova.
A supernova explosion is the brightest explosion in the universe. It is a violent explosion that occurs when certain stars are approaching the end of their evolution. It is also a sign that a star is about to die.
During a supernova explosion, the interior of the star will begin to collapse, and when a certain limit is reached, the star will eject most of its material (various elements from hydrogen to iron).
According to the mass of the supernova "before life", the explosion will directly lead to two different results: one is to form a neutron star, and the other is to collapse into a black hole that even light cannot escape.
So, what is meant by a failed supernova?
Zhang Peijin pointed out that failed supernovae can be understood as some celestial bodies that may be extremely rare and unformed supernovae-they formed black holes before they exploded and emitted a shining light.
The above-mentioned research team also pointed out in related papers: "It cannot be ruled out that some stars with smaller masses (and therefore more in number) do not explode. This may be due to some other mechanism, which leads to such a high rate of'vanishing stars'. ."