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Astronomers have photographed a "behemoth star": this is the first detailed photo outside the Milky Way
On the left is an image of WOH G64 taken by the VLT, and on the right is an artist's impression of the dying star located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Source: ESO
Astronomers have for the first time taken a magnified image of a star outside the Milky Way. Using the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), a team of experts focused on a red supergiant star called WOH G64.
WOH G64 is located as far as 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. Scientists knew about the existence of this star, which was nicknamed the "hippo" because of its incredible size – it is 2000 times larger than the Sun, Space.com reports.
The VLTI telescope was able to see this distant star in such detail that it even saw the surrounding cocoon of gas and dust. These material outflows indicate that WOH G64 is dying and this process leads to a powerful supernova explosion.
"For the first time, we've been able to take a magnified image of a dying star in a galaxy outside our own Milky Way. We found an egg-shaped cocoon that closely surrounds the star. This may be due to the sudden ejection of material from the dying star before the supernova explosion," said an astrophysicist from Andres Bello University and head of the research team, Keiichi Ohnaka.
The team of scientists found that WOH G64 has been fading over the past decade.
"We found that the star has undergone significant changes over the past 10 years, giving us a rare opportunity to observe its life in real-time," said Professor of Astronomy Gerd Weigelt.
According to scientists, giant stars shed their outer layers of gas and dust at the final stage of their lives. This process can last for thousands of years.
Director of the Keele Observatory Jacco van Loon has been observing the behemoth star for the past three decades and called it "one of the most extreme of its kind."
This cosmic giant is fading due to layers of stellar material that is shedding and creating an egg-shaped shell around it, the researchers explain. The oddly shaped cocoon could also be the result of the gravitational influence of an undetected companion star pulling it near WOH G64.
"Further observations with ESO instruments will be important for understanding what is happening in the star," summarized the head of the research team, Keiichi Ohnaka.
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