Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2020

43 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2020 SPACE CHRONICLES some of them. From 2001 to 2011, the light from the galaxy consis- tently showed evidence that it hosted a ‘luminous blue variable’ star some 2.5 million times brighter than the Sun. Stars of this type are unstable, showing occasional dra- matic shifts in their spectra and brightness. Even with those shifts, luminous blue variables leave spe- cific traces scientists can identify, but they were absent from the data the team collected in 2019, leaving them to wonder what had happened to T his illustration shows what the luminous blue variable star in the Kinman Dwarf galaxy could have looked like before its mysterious dis- appearance. [ESO/L. Calçada]