Steller bang: The red supergiant star V838 Monocerotis, surrounded by a cloud of dust illuminated by the exploding star. Current models of supernova formation fail to explain how such massive stars explode. Some supergiants may simply vanish instead, say U.S. researchers.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Stellar whimper
"This [study] makes the point that some stars may go out with a whimper rather than a bang," said astrophysicist Scott Croom from the University of Sydney who was not involved in the research. "[This is] a really nice, neat idea… that could help to shed light on models of supernova formation."
Croom noted that one possible limitation is that the survey wouldn't be able to accurately observe galaxies much further than 10 megaparsecs away.
"As you look further into space, stars start to get too faint and it gets harder to resolve individual stars," commented Croom. "In order to detect the absence of a star you need to detect individual stars of ordinary brightness, and even in nearby galaxies this is relatively challenging. If you're looking at many galaxies, this starts to be a significant undertaking."
