Unveiling the progenitors of the most massive stellar black hole KU Leuven
Massive stars, with masses more than eight times that of the Sun, have long been predicted to form exotic compact objects: neutron stars and black holes. A long-standing problem has been the fate of very massive stars, more than fifty times the mass of the sun, which are expected to undergo thermonuclear explosions leading to either black hole formation or total disruption. No transient event has been detected that unambiguously matches these ...