Watch the moment a star collapses into a black hole

"The now-deceased star, dubbed M31-2014-DS1, was located around 2.5 million light-years from Earth in the neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy. In 2014, NASA telescopes recorded the distant star brightening briefly before fading out of existence over the next three years. Now, scientists have realised they had inadvertently watched as the star died, collapsed, and transformed into a black hole. What makes this observation so exciting for astronomers is that this isn't how black holes were thought form."

"When a star is born, it is held in a state of balance as the outward pressure from burning hydrogen matches the inward push of gravity. But as the star begins to run out of fuel after billions of years, that outward pressure falters, and the star begins to collapse under its own gravity. If it is at least 10 times bigger than the sun, the core will be crushed into a super-dense, city-sized object known as a neutron star."

A supergiant star named M31-2014-DS1 in the Andromeda Galaxy brightened briefly in 2014 and then faded over the following three years before disappearing. Observational records indicate the star collapsed and transformed directly into a black hole without an accompanying supernova explosion. This direct-collapse behavior contrasts with the conventional view that black holes form following supernova explosions in the deaths of very massive stars. Stellar equilibrium fails as nuclear fuel is exhausted, producing core collapse; stars above about ten solar masses typically form neutron stars accompanied by supernovae, while only more massive stars were thought to produce black holes via explosions. The M31-2014-DS1 case implies an alternative pathway where outer layers are not ejected and a black hole forms silently.

Read at Mail Online