Back in 2009 a star flared in brightness and then completely disappeared. The best explanation we had at the time was that the star had skipped supernova entirely and collapsed straight down into a black hole.
But now the James Webb Space Telescope has taken a look and found something there in infrared light that doesn't seem to have changed brightness at all.
So what else could it be? And why does this cause so many problems for explaining the "red supergiant problem"?
00:00 - Introduction
01:18 - The Red Supergiant Problem
04:52 - What has JWST found observing N6946-BH1?
06:49 - If it's not a "failed supernova" black hole - what else could it be?
09:18 - Follow up JWST observations are planned
09:57 - Bloopers