3 stars suddenly disappeared, astronomers were confused for 70 years

Three “stars” suddenly disappeared in 1952 in just under an hour. Since then, apart from continuing to observe in vain, astronomers have still not been able to find an answer.

There is a phenomenon that happened more than 70 years ago that still confuses astronomers and causes endless debate. It is the story of three stars suddenly disappearing in less than an hour, an event that to this day has no satisfactory explanation.

On the evening of July 19, 1952, at the famous Palomar Observatory in the United States, astronomers were taking pictures of the sky as usual. At 8:52 p.m., the telescope captured images of three exceptionally bright and stable points of light, which looked exactly like ordinary stars , clustered close together in the sky.

Three stars photographed by the Palomar Observatory on July 19, 1952 suddenly disappeared less than an hour later. Photo: Solano et al.

Their distinct rings suggested that the sources were stationary, not moving appreciably against the stellar background. But then, a strange thing happened just 53 minutes later: when the telescope returned to the area at 9:45 a.m. to take a follow-up image, all three points of light had completely disappeared, leaving no trace behind.

For more than 70 years after that, despite using more modern telescopes such as the Canary telescope for deep observations, scientists still could not find those three mysterious "stars" again.

This phenomenon quickly caused a stir in the astronomy world. Because normally, a star cannot "disappear" so suddenly. It is called "transient triplet" by many scientists.

The evolution of a star, whether it burns out its fuel or explodes as a supernova, lasts from a few days to billions of years, depending on the mass and properties of the star.

The sudden disappearance in less than an hour, and occurring simultaneously with three light sources close together, is completely unusual, even unrecorded.

The gravitational lensing effect, often called “Einstein’s Cross,” has been used to explain but still creates inexplicable conflicts. Photo: Sapec Gid.

Initially, some people suspected that this was a device error or an influence from the shooting environment. However, the stable circular characteristics of the bright spots in the image ruled out the possibility of moving objects such as airplanes, satellites or meteors.

It also couldn't have been the geostationary satellites reflecting sunlight, because in 1952 the first artificial satellite hadn't been launched yet (Sputnik 1 wasn't launched until 1957). So the satellite hypothesis was also ruled out.

When comparing images taken with two different light sensitivities (one red and one blue), a suspicious difference was discovered: three bright light sources appeared in the red image but were absent in the blue image.

This has led scientists to seriously consider the possibility that the three “stars” are just transient phenomena, not real stars with a permanent presence in the sky. One of the hypotheses mentioned is a supernova explosion, when a star explodes and emits extremely bright light for a short time.

However, the light of a supernova usually lasts for days or weeks, not just a few dozen minutes like these three bright spots. Furthermore, the probability of three supernova explosions occurring at the same time, close enough to appear in the same photo, is almost impossible.

Some other researchers have proposed that the three bright spots may be reflections from a single light source, through a gravitational lensing effect. This occurs when a massive object (such as a black hole or galaxy cluster) comes between the light source and the observer, bending the light from the light source and creating multiple virtual images.

A famous example is the “Einstein Cross”, where a single light source is bent into four separate points of light due to this effect. If this hypothesis is correct, the three “stars” may simply be mirror images of a single event, perhaps a massive star or a powerful explosive phenomenon such as a gamma-ray burst, and when the gravitational conditions in front change, the lensed images disappear, causing them to “evaporate” completely from view.

Another notable detail is that the angular distance between the three bright spots is only about 10 arc seconds, which corresponds to a distance of no more than 2 light years if they are indeed causally linked in the same phenomenon.

This contradicts current knowledge, because besides the Sun, the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is more than four light years away. If the three bright spots were indeed nearby stars, they should be easy to spot and familiar. But clearly they are not.

It is this contradiction between astronomical observation and logical analysis that makes the mystery of the three disappearing “stars” such a deeply puzzling phenomenon. Visually, they resemble stars; yet logically, they cannot be stars.

Is this a completely new phenomenon that we have never seen before? A message from the distant universe? Or simply an extremely rare coincidence in nature?

Although modern instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can now see deeper than ever, the best time to observe this phenomenon has passed.

Astronomers are being forced to accept that we may have missed one of the most valuable clues to an unrepeatable fleeting phenomenon.

Just like comets that streak across the sky and disappear into the night, there are moments in the universe that happen only once – and if not captured, they will forever remain a mystery.

The answer remains unanswered, but such mysteries further urge humanity to continue to look up to the sky, searching for untold stories in the endless void.

Source: https://khoahocdoisong.vn/3-ngoi-sao-bat-ngo-bien-mat-gioi-thien-van-boi-roi-suot-70-nam-post269277.html