Spotlight: For the first time, scientists have captured a close-up image of a star outside our galaxy—WOH G64, a massive star approximately 1,500 times the size of our Sun and located 160,000 light-years from Earth.

Until now, capturing a clear image of WOH G64 seemed nearly impossible, as it would require a telescope larger than 100 meters. Instead, astronomers combined data from four 1.8-meter telescopes to create the image. This breakthrough provides a rare glimpse into what happens to a star at the end of its life.

Keiichi Ohnaka, an astronomer at Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile, commented on the significance of the discovery:

“WOH G64 gives us an incredibly realistic opportunity to study what a star does right before a potential supernova explosion. Of course, ‘right before’ is meant in an astronomical sense—not today, next week, or even next year.”

WOH G64 may take anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 years to explode as a supernova. However, the signs of its impending death are promising. According to Ohnaka’s theory, the star is surrounded by a hazy, egg-shaped cocoon made of gas and dust particles—materials that dying stars often eject. But the strongest clue that the star is nearing its end is its dim appearance, especially when compared to historical brightness records. Ohnaka suggests that over the past decade, WOH G64 has been shedding increasing amounts of material, causing it to fade. Some stars temporarily dim before recovering, but others never regain their brightness.

“At first, we wanted to take another close-up image,” Ohnaka explained. “But it didn’t work very well. The star was too faint. So, we started monitoring it to see when it might brighten again… But perhaps more interestingly, it may never come back. It could keep getting dimmer and dimmer.”

Source: Hartley, S. (2024, November 21). This is the first close-up image of a star beyond our galaxy. Science News. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-close-image-star-beyond-galaxy

Africa AI Beijing Belt & Road BLCU BRICS China chinese CPC CSC Culture Deepseek Development Economy education Europe Global Economics Kültür Langauge Multipolarity Russia scholarship Shanghai Sino Sino Turkish Sino Turkish Sino Turkish Sino Turkish Sino Turkish Studies Sino Turkish Studies Sino Turkish Studies Sino Turkish Studies Syria Taiwan trump Turkey Turkiye Türkiye University USA Vatan Party Xinjiang Zhejiang ZJUT Çin