Have there ever been any stars or planets, that we see in the night sky, just disappear? I always wondered if that has happened during the last 4,000 years or so of celestial observation. When I was a kid I was told that some stars are so far away that they were dead but the light we are receiving from them is still continuing to arrive as starlight. Have we seen that dead star light wink out? I know the universe is very old and the last 4,000 years was just a blink of an eye, but I’m curious if anyone knows if this has happened.
Chinese were very diligent skywatchers and catalogued much history, there was record of a “guest star” supernova being witnessed before the star blinked out of existence. And recently astronomers observed a star in Andromeda collapse into a black hole.
Other stars like our own will eventually, in about 5 billion years, become a red giant and then a white dwarf, but will take hundreds of billions of years to cool to the point where they no longer emit light, so none of them have had enough time for that to happen yet.
Have there ever been any stars or planets, that we see in the night sky, just disappear? I always wondered if that has happened during the last 4,000 years or so of celestial observation. When I was a kid I was told that some stars are so far away that they were dead but the light we are receiving from them is still continuing to arrive as starlight. Have we seen that dead star light wink out? I know the universe is very old and the last 4,000 years was just a blink of an eye, but I’m curious if anyone knows if this has happened.
Chinese were very diligent skywatchers and catalogued much history, there was record of a “guest star” supernova being witnessed before the star blinked out of existence. And recently astronomers observed a star in Andromeda collapse into a black hole.
That’s what supernova are.
Other stars like our own will eventually, in about 5 billion years, become a red giant and then a white dwarf, but will take hundreds of billions of years to cool to the point where they no longer emit light, so none of them have had enough time for that to happen yet.