Have you ever wondered what a star looks like when it’s exploding? Astronomers have just achieved an incredible milestone: capturing the first close-up image of a dying star in another galaxy. The star, WOH G64, is a red supergiant located 160,000 light-years from Earth. It’s 2,000 times larger than our Sun, and the photograph shows it at the brink of becoming a supernova – one of the most powerful explosions in space.
What’s incredible about this image is that what we’re seeing has already happened long ago. Due to the distance, the light that reaches us from WOH G64 takes thousands of years to get here, meaning we’re looking at an event from the past, even though it might seem like it’s happening right now.
The new observations show a star losing gas and dust in the last stages before it becomes a supernova. The shed materials have created a cosmic cocoon around the dying star. The most exciting part is that, for the first time, we can see this process up close thanks to the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). The images taken by cutting-edge telescopes allow us to observe the death of a star in a way we’ve never seen before.
This discovery is crucial because it helps astronomers understand the life cycle of stars. Although WOH G64 might not explode for thousands of years, seeing this process unfold in real time offers a unique opportunity to study how stars live and die. These events also play a significant role in creating new elements and planets, showing how interconnected everything in space is. Astronomers are excited to continue observing and learning from this star as it nears its end.