Three stars mysteriously disappeared in 1952, and conjecture is all we have

California, US

In July 1952, Palomar's astronomical research observatory in US California was conducting a night sky photographic survey. It involved taking multiple images of the same sky region to identify celestial objects, including asteroids.

But during this survey, a peculiar event unfolded. Three stars just vanished. 

The survey was undergoing when at 8:52 pm a photographic plate recorded the presence of three stars grouped closely together. It appeared relatively bright with a magnitude of 15.

However, just 53 minutes later, at around 9:45 pm, when the same section of the sky was captured once more, those three stars had seemingly disappeared without a trace.

As per reports stars typically do not vanish. What can happen is that they can undergo processes like explosions or sudden increases in brightness.

But complete disappearance is an unusual phenomenon. Yet, the photographic evidence clearly showed their presence in the first image and their absence in the second.

Also Read | NASA Curiosity rover finds evidence, Mars was once a 'planet of rivers'

Did the stars dim? 

One of the theories that could be thought of is that these stars had dimmed quickly. However, this phenomenon faced significant challenges.

Subsequent observations found no evidence of these stars getting dimmer than magnitude 24. What this implied was that these then could have dimmed by a staggering factor of over 10,000 in less than an hour.

So, what are the possible explanations for the sudden disappearance of these stars?  

Several theories have emerged to account for this enigmatic event.

One was that these three stars might actually be a single star that experienced a transient increase in brightness, such as from a fast radio burst emitted by a magnetar.

During this brightness surge, a stellar-mass black hole might have passed between the star and Earth, causing the burst to gravitationally lens and appear as three distinct images briefly, media reports said. 

Also Read | Lunar Eclipse 2023: Will it be visible in India? Check date and time | All you need to know

However, the rarity of such an event also raised doubts. An alternative idea is that these were not stars at all.

Watch | Interest rate on 30-year home loans reach 23-year high | World Business Watch

A third hypothesis was about the possibility that these were not celestial objects but rather cropped up due to contamination.

Palomar Observatory was not far from the New Mexico deserts where nuclear weapons testing occurred. Radioactive dust from these tests might have contaminated the photographic plates, causing bright spots to appear in some images but not others.

At this stage, the true explanation remains elusive. 

(With inputs from agencies)