In rarity, astronomers have snapped a close-up view of a massive star outside our own galaxy about 160,000 light-years away.
The European Southern Observatory today released the image of WOH G64, a red supergiant star located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy that neighbors the Milky Way.
The image is striking, especially since it looks like the Eye of Sauron from The Lord of The Rings films. But in reality, you’re looking at a dying star that’s about 1,500 to 2,000 times the size of our own Sun and ejecting large amounts of gas and dust.
"For the first time, we have succeeded in taking a zoomed-in image of a dying star in a galaxy outside our own Milky Way," astrophysicist Keiichi Ohnaka says in the announcement.
Ohnaka’s team imaged the star using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, which is based in northern Chile and consists of four telescopes. The site has also been using an instrument, dubbed GRAVITY, to combine the light from the four telescopes to help pick up more minute details from far-off faint objects. "Its improved sensitivity and resolution made the image of WOH G64 possible," the ESO added.
(Credit: ESO/K. Ohnaka et al./Y. Beletsky)The resulting image shows that "an egg-shaped cocoon" surrounds WOH G64, which has been losing mass and could explode in a supernova, according to Ohnaka. His team was also surprised to find the star has become dimmer over the past decade.
"This star is one of the most extreme of its kind, and any drastic change may bring it closer to an explosive end,” says astronomer Jacco van Loon, who has been observing it since the 1990s.
The ESO also notes: "The new image shows that the cocoon is stretched out, which surprised scientists, who expected a different shape based on previous observations and computer models. The team believes that the cocoon’s egg-like shape could be explained by either the star’s shedding or by the influence of a yet-undiscovered companion star."
It’ll be harder to observe WOH G64 as it continues to dim. But upgrades to the GRAVITY instrument promise to help astronomers keep tabs on the dying star.