Thursday, February 19, 2026

No Supernova Needed. This Star Collapsed Directly Into A Black Hole

In this illustration, a star has collapsed directly into a black hole. The black hole is surrounded by the star's envelope, expelled prior to collapse. A white ball of heated gas in the center is falling into the black hole. Direct-collapse black holes shouldn't be that rare according to theory, though observational evidence is scarce. Image Credit: Keith Miller, Caltech/IPAC - SELab

Theory says that, under the right conditions, massive stars can collapse directly into black holes without exploding as supernovae. But observational evidence of the phenomenon has been hard to get. Now astronomers have found some sequestered in archival data.



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