Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait recently posted about an outburst from V838 Monocerotis, giving us an awesome look at the area surrounding it:
V838 Monocerotis is a beautiful and frankly bizarre star that had undergone a huge outburst a few years ago. Hubble images of the event show that the star is surrounded by a huge cloud of dust tens of trillions of kilometers across. Over the years, many images were made, and the shape of the cloud appears to change. The video shows this [Youtube] in an animation created from these Hubble observations.
First, despite appearances, the cloud itself is not changing in these images! It's actually fairly static, with movement far too small to notice on this timescale. What you're seeing is actually a pulse of light from the outburst moving through the cloud, illuminating it. Light moves very rapidly, but the cloud is huge, light years across. That means it takes a long time for light to cross it, and over the years we're just seeing different parts of the dust cloud being lit. This type of event is common in astronomy, and it's called a light echo. Video example [Youtube].
Second, although we're not exactly sure what caused the outburst, the most likely explanation is that two normal (but massive) stars merged together. An event like this is pretty rare, but entirely possible. When that happens they form a single, more massive star, which is unstable. It can undergo a huge paroxysm, brightening by a factor of thousands, while also expanding and reddening. This all fits what we see here; the dust cloud would've been part of the nebula that formed the stars, and existed long before they did.
That first Youtube video is now my favorite, that is the reason why I love space, just the sheer vastness of it. I can hardly understand it, but it is just so amazing. Have you ever seen an image, video, or even just text about something in space that just made you sit in awe? Please share your story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 20 2014, @06:50AM
No, I shall not share. Don't tell me what to do. Who you think you are?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 20 2014, @07:12AM
I'm you, me! Put your hands up, spread your legs, and do the monkey! Dance!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 20 2014, @07:44AM
Yes please stop these editor comments unless needed to clarify somthing.
(Score: 2) by Woods on Friday June 20 2014, @08:04PM
Editor comments are in [Square brackets].
The bit at the end was me actually speaking to you, the reader, and genuinely being interested to hear what you had to say.
Of course, I guess I AM an editor, so any comment I make is technically an "editor comment" even if I am the submitter and NOT the editor of an article. But still, give me a break here, I just really love space and want to hear more about it from fellow space nerds.
(Score: 1) by Hawkwind on Friday June 20 2014, @09:34PM
You want a break after sharing such a cool video? Hah!
Thanks for this, though, one of the stills is now my workplace desktop.
(Score: 2) by quadrox on Friday June 20 2014, @06:54AM
I can clearly see parts of the cloud move - I am not talking about movement from center outwards, I can accept that being the light going through the cloud, but I am clearly seing small parts wobble or billow.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday June 20 2014, @07:49AM
The video is a processed animation based on a few images, so any "wobble" you see is more than likely due to morphing.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Friday June 20 2014, @09:54AM
Furthermore: a quick search suggests there were only 4 or 5 input images, so there's a lot of interpolation (both metaphorically and mathematically) going on here.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Friday June 20 2014, @07:10AM
Enjoyed watching the linked video. Space is truly stranger than we CAN imagine.
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by BradTheGeek on Friday June 20 2014, @10:17AM
My favorites are the Deep Field, Ultra Deep Field, and Extreme Deep Field images. OUt of the reach of an amateur but simply astounding. To see the sheer number of galaxies, then see how tiny an area of sky that image is taken from when looking that deeply, this is one of the few things that actually gives me a true sense of the enormity of the universe. I can look at the numbers, and on an intellectual level have a basic understanding of scale, but beyond a certain point, that is all it is is numbers. A deep field image makes me feel that distance.
Examples:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2012/10/10/how-many-galaxies-are-there-in-the-universe-the-redder-we-look-the-more-we-see/#.U6QI7vldVSE [discovermagazine.com]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/HubbleDeepField.800px.jpg [wikimedia.org]
http://www.dlr.de/en/Portaldata/1/Resources/portal_news/newsarchiv2009_5/Hubble_udf.jpg [www.dlr.de]
http://regmedia.co.uk/2012/09/25/hubble_xdf.jpg [regmedia.co.uk]
(Score: 2) by Woods on Friday June 20 2014, @08:32PM
Thank you so much for answering, I meant to post first, but the story released while I was asleep.
Herbig-Haro objects were the very first things to get my attention way back when. The first multi-picture of space I saw was HH47, 5 frames of a gif [wikimedia.org], you can barely make out any movement, but I watched that thing repeat for probably ten minutes, noting every little difference as the object drifted off from its star.
Of course, the deep fields. I have seen many beautiful pictures of people, places, sunsets... But The only picture that really got to me is the deep field images. Nothing quite puts me in my place like those images, I still like to go back to them occasionally and look at the sheer variety of galaxies that are out there, all a mere drop in the water that is the universe. I think I like the golden galaxy in the bottom right of the UDF the most, you can see it so well, but it is sooooo so far away.
Planetary nebulae [wikipedia.org] are my current favorite, despite the misnaming, they are really quite interesting, and incredibly varied. Wikipedia puts it best: "Many planetary nebulae have extremely complex and varied morphologies."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 21 2014, @12:43AM
The Deep Fields are some of my faves, too.