Astronomers observe a star that quietly transformed into a black hole
Published on: Feb. 13, 2026, 12:32 a.m. | Source: Devdiscourse
"This provides observational evidence of black hole formation in real time, suggests that many black holes may form without supernova explosions and shows that stars with masses as low as about 13 times that of the sun can form black holes," said astrophysicist Kishalay De of the Flatiron Institute and Columbia University in New York, lead author of the research published on Thursday in the journal Science. Scientists have known for more than 50 years that black holes exist, but still have "very, very limited observational evidence for how stars turn into black holes," De said.
