His name is WOH G64 and it is a star that is located 160,000 light years from Earth. Now it has been photographed, for the first time at such a close distance, thanks to the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The image shows the presence of a curious oval-shaped “cocoon” that surrounds the star and a less luminous outer elliptical ring. The results of the analysis were published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
We never saw her so close
The newly photographed star, classified as red supergiantis located within the Magellanic Cloud, one of the small galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. Astronomers call it “star giant” due to its enormous size, two thousand times larger than that of the Sun. The research team led by Keiichi Ohnaka, astrophysicist at the Andrés Bello University of Chile and first author of the publication, has been studying WOH G64 for some time, but until now had never managed to get a real picture of it.
The feat was possible thanks to a second-generation VLT instrument, known as Gravityand allowed us to observe certain variations that the star seems to have suffered over time: “We discovered that the star has undergone significant changes in the last 10 yearswhich gives us a rare opportunity to witness the life of a star in real time,” says Gerd Weigelt, professor of astronomy at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, who co-authored the study.
What is that “cocoon” around the star?
In the final stages of their lives, red supergiant stars, such as WOH G64, first shed their outer layers of gas and dust in a process that can last thousands of years and precedes their transformation into supernovas. The presence of the “cocoon” around the star (not to be confused with the outermost elliptical ring, whose characterization will require new observations, according to what the researchers explain) could be due precisely to this process. His curious oval shapeby the way, surprised the authors of the study, who based on previous observations and computer simulations would have expected a different shape. Perhaps, they speculate, the unexpected configuration of the material surrounding the star could be due to the influence of a nearby star that has not yet been discovered.
Article originally published in WIRED Italy. Adapted by Mauricio Serfatty Godoy.
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