Overview
- Astronomers report that M31-2014-DS1, once among Andromeda’s brightest stars, faded to about one ten-thousandth of its prior optical and near-infrared brightness by 2022–2023 and is now detectable only in mid-infrared at roughly one-tenth of its former level.
- NEOWISE and multiwavelength archives reveal a roughly 50% infrared rise beginning in 2014 followed by rapid dimming from 2016, delivering the most complete observational sequence yet for a suspected failed supernova.
- The team’s models invoke turbulent convection that slows infall, drives a dusty outflow, and powers a long-lived infrared glow, implying formation of a black hole of about five solar masses from a star initially near 13 solar masses.
- The analysis also reinterprets the earlier case NGC 6946‑BH1 as a similar event, suggesting such quiet collapses may be more common than previously assumed.
- Follow-ups with JWST and Chandra obtained in 2024 are described by the authors as consistent with the model but remain unreviewed, while a peer‑reviewed study led by Emma Beasor argues a dust‑shrouded stellar merger could explain the observations, prompting calls for continued monitoring.