Star Collapses Directly into Black Hole Without Supernova: New Discovery

• Astronomers found clearest evidence of a massive star collapsing directly into a black hole, bypassing a supernova explosion.
• The discovery, led by Indian-origin astronomer Kishalay De, offers new insights into stellar death.
• Archival data from NASA’s NEOWISE mission recorded the event in 2014, showing a star in the Andromeda galaxy brightening in infrared light for three years before fading.
• The star, M31-2014-DS1, with an initial mass 13 times that of the Sun, underwent a "direct collapse" without a bright explosion.
• This finding challenges the belief that stars of this size typically explode as supernovae before forming black holes, suggesting quiet collapses may be more common.