Sunday, June 15, 2014

The Aftermath

Here’s arguably the coolest video I’ve ever seen.  The Hubble timelapse over 4 years of star V838 Monocerotis, or V838 Mon.

From Petapixel:

Captured over the course of 4 years by the Hubble Space Telescope, it’s a time-lapse that shows a very unusual star’s ‘light echo’ rippling out through space in the most spectacular fashion.

A light echo happens with any object in space that brightens very quickly, such as a nova or a supernova. The light from the star itself reaches us first, but if there is dust and other stellar debris around the star, some light is reflected from the clouds and takes a bit longer to reach us.

Simply breathtaking.

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