Ghosting the Galaxy: The Star That Left Without Saying Goodbye

ITC members Morgan MacLeod, Lecturer in Astronomy at Harvard, and Avi Loeb, Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard and Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC), contributed to the announcement in Science on February 12, 2026, of the implosion of a massive star forming a black hole.

A bright, massive star in the Andromeda galaxy, M31-2014-DS1, completely disappeared from view in optical light about ten years ago. When investigating this disappearance, researchers found the former star had completely transformed. Instead of a star, astronomers now see hot gas shining as it falls into a newly formed black hole, surrounded by a shell of much cooler gas, molecules, and dust. This structure can only form if the core of the star implodes into a black hole, while the tenuous outer layers don't quite make it in and are expelled instead.

Scientists have thought for a long time that stellar-mass black holes must form as the end states of stars. Many stars explode as dramatic and bright supernovae; this one seems to be one of the long-theorized "failed" supernovae that collapse instead of exploding

“Watching it happen is an incredible privilege because we can test our understanding against the real thing, and we're learning a tremendous amount about how this process works,” says MacLeod.

Researchers who contributed to this discovery include ITC alumnus Kishalay De, currently an astronomer at Columbia University and the Flatiron Institute.

Continued Reading

Disappearance of a massive star in the Andromeda Galaxy due to formation of a black hole via Science

Have astronomers witnessed the birth of a black hole? via NPR

Archival Data From NASA’s NEOWISE Tracks Star Turning Into Black Hole via JPL/NASA