以下是2024年关于缺失的红色超巨星的报告，指出天文学家观察到一些红色超巨星的缺失现象，这可能暗示这些恒星的演化过程中存在未解之谜。这些"缺失的红色超巨星"现象促使科学界重新审视恒星生命周期的理论模型，并激发了对宇宙演化更深入的研究。
对红外线资料的建模显示，前身星周围的尘埃很可能是富含碳，而非通常预期的富含矽酸盐组成，这暗示在核心崩溃前不久可能发生了晚期碳上涌。中红外线的限制条件对推断尘埃类型与不透明度具有决定性作用，并强化了这样的诠释：尘埃偏差会影响前身星族群统计，且可能扭曲以光度为基础对大质量恒星终点的预期。该发布也量化了 NASA-ESA-CSA 伙伴关系下的任务背景，包括 ESA 提供 Ariane 5 发射服务、NIRSpec 与 50% 的 MIRI，同时团队计划在未来爆炸发生前，持续搜寻同样被尘埃包裹的红超巨星。
On 23 February 2026, ESA reported that the James Webb Space Telescope (NASA/ESA/CSA) achieved the first published identification of a supernova progenitor that had been invisible to other facilities: a red supergiant in NGC 1637 later linked to supernova 2025pht. The explosion itself occurred about 40 million years ago, and its light reached Earth on 29 June 2025, when the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae detected it. A team led by Charlie Kilpatrick (Northwestern University) then used archival pre-explosion imaging to pinpoint the original star.
The core evidence came from precise alignment of Hubble and Webb observations, especially Webb MIRI and NIRCam data from 2024, which located a single progenitor candidate exactly at the supernova position. The star appeared extremely red, indicating heavy circumstellar dust absorption at shorter blue wavelengths; Aswin Suresh described it as the reddest and dustiest exploding red supergiant yet observed. These observations support the long-standing “missing red supergiants” explanation: higher-mass progenitors can be present but optically obscured enough to fall below pre-supernova detection limits.
Modeling of the infrared data indicates the dust around the progenitor was likely carbon-rich rather than the silicate-rich composition typically expected, suggesting possible late-stage carbon dredge-up shortly before core collapse. Mid-infrared constraints were decisive for inferring dust type and opacity, strengthening the interpretation that dust bias affects progenitor demographics and can skew luminosity-based expectations for massive-star endpoints. The release also quantifies mission context under the NASA-ESA-CSA partnership, including ESA’s provision of Ariane 5 launch services, NIRSpec, and 50% of MIRI, while the team plans follow-up searches for similarly dust-enshrouded red supergiants before future explosions.