Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Astronomers snap first up-close image of a star outside our galaxy

By
This image shows an artist’s reconstruction of the star WOH G64, the first star outside our galaxy to be imaged in close-up. It is located at a staggering distance of over 160 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This artistic impression showcases its main features: an egg-shaped cocoon of dust surrounding the star and a ring or torus of dust. The existence and shape of the latter require more observations to be confirmed.
This image shows an artist’s reconstruction of the star WOH G64, the first star outside our galaxy to be imaged in close-up. It is located at a staggering distance of over 160 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This artistic impression showcases its main features: an egg-shaped cocoon of dust surrounding the star and a ring or torus of dust. The existence and shape of the latter require more observations to be confirmed. ESO/L. Calçada

It’s sometimes hard to grasp the scale of our universe, when even our own galaxy is so large and filled with billions of stars. But all of the stars that we have seen in detail are contained within the roughly 100,000 light-year span of our Milky Way galaxy. That is, until now, as astronomers recently observed a star outside of our galaxy up close for the first time.

The researchers looked at star WOH G64, located 160,000 light-years away, using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer. The image shows the main bulk of the star surrounded by a puffy cocoon of dust and gas.

This is an image of the star WOH G64, taken by the GRAVITY instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI). This is the first close-up picture of a star outside our own galaxy, the Milky Way. The star is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, over 160 000 light-years away. The bright oval at the centre of this image is a dusty cocoon that enshrouds the star. A fainter elliptical ring around it could be the inner rim of a dusty torus, but more observations are needed to confirm this feature.
This is an image of the star WOH G64, taken by the GRAVITY instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer. This is the first close-up picture of a star outside our own galaxy, the Milky Way. ESO/K. Ohnaka et al.

“We discovered an egg-shaped cocoon closely surrounding the star,” said lead researcher Keiichi Ohnaka of the Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile in a statement. “We are excited because this may be related to the drastic ejection of material from the dying star before a supernova explosion.”

Recommended Videos

The star is located in one of the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, called the Large Magellanic Cloud. This satellite galaxy orbits around the Milky Way and is much smaller, at around one-hundredth of the mass of our galaxy. The star itself is a big one, though, coming in at 2,000 times the size of our sun — making it a type called a red supergiant.

The Large Magellanic Cloud is a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way, located 160 000 light-years away from us. Despite the staggering distance, the GRAVITY instrument of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI), managed to take a closed-up picture of the giant star WOH G64. This image shows the location of the star within the Large Magellanic Cloud, with with some of the VLTI’s Auxiliary Telescopes in the foreground.
The Large Magellanic Cloud is a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way, located 160 000 light-years away from us. Despite the staggering distance, the GRAVITY instrument of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI), managed to take a close-up picture of the giant star WOH G64. This image shows the location of the star within the Large Magellanic Cloud, with some of the VLTI’s Auxiliary Telescopes in the foreground. ESO/K. Ohnaka et al./Y. Beletsky (LCO)

This huge star is undergoing a process of change, in which it is shedding off its outer layers and throwing off dust and gas, creating the cocoon. This material could be what is causing the star to dim, and the fast rate of change suggests it could be set to go supernova soon.

Related

“We have found that the star has been experiencing a significant change in the last 10 years, providing us with a rare opportunity to witness a star’s life in real time,” said fellow researcher Gerd Weigelt of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany.

Jacco van Loon of Keele University agreed: “This star is one of the most extreme of its kind, and any drastic change may bring it closer to an explosive end.”

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Two asteroids whipped past Earth last week, and researchers snapped images
The Goldstone Solar System Radar, part of NASA’s Deep Space Network, made these observations of the recently discovered 500-foot-wide (150-meter-wide) asteroid 2024 MK, which made its closest approach — within about 184,000 miles (295,000 kilometers) of Earth — on June 29.

The Goldstone Solar System Radar, part of NASA’s Deep Space Network, made these observations of the recently discovered 500-foot-wide (150-meter-wide) asteroid 2024 MK, which made its closest approach — within about 184,000 miles (295,000 kilometers) of Earth — on June 29. NASA/JPL-Caltech

The last week saw not one but two asteroids whip by Earth at close distances -- not so close as to threaten the planet, but close enough for scientists to get a good view of them. Asteroid hunters tracked the pair as they passed by, and they were even imaged by NASA instruments to learn more about asteroids, including those that could potentially threaten Earth in the future.

Read more
James Webb snaps a colorful image of a star in the process of forming
L1527, shown in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), is a molecular cloud that harbors a protostar. It resides about 460 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. The more diffuse blue light and the filamentary structures in the image come from organic compounds known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), while the red at the center of this image is an energized, thick layer of gases and dust that surrounds the protostar. The region in between, which shows up in white, is a mixture of PAHs, ionized gas, and other molecules.

L1527, shown in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), is a molecular cloud that harbors a protostar. It resides about 460 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

A stunning new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a young star called a protostar and the huge outflows of dust and gas that are thrown out as it consumes material from its surrounding cloud. This object has now been observed using two of Webb's instruments: a previous version that was taken in the near-infrared with Webb's NIRCam camera, and new data in the mid-infrared taken with Webb's MIRI instrument.

Read more
Hubble takes first image since switching to new pointing mode
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope features the galaxy NGC 1546.

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of the galaxy NGC 1546. NASA, ESA, STScI, David Thilker (JHU)

The Hubble Space Telescope has been through some troubles of late, and the way that it operates had to be changed recently to compensate for some degraded hardware. The telescope's three gyros, which help it to switch between different targets in the sky, have been experiencing issues, with one in particular frequently failing over recent months. NASA made the decision recently to change the way that Hubble points, and it now uses just one gyro at a time instead of all three in order to preserve the two remaining gyros for as long as possible.

Read more