NASA Shares Stunning Image Of Dying Star Located 20,000 Light-Years Away From Earth

US space agency NASA regularly captures stunning images of our universe, leaving space lovers mesmerized. The Instagram handle of the US Space Agency is a treasure trove for those who love to watch educational videos and fascinating images showcasing Earth and space. Now, in its recent post, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shared a picture of an expanding halo of light around a distant star named V838 Monocreotis. V838 Mon is about 20,000 light-years away from Earth at the outer edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, the space agency said. 

“The expanding illumination of never-before-seen spirals of dust is called a light echo. These swirls are likely caused by the dust and gas that are being ejected from the red supergiant star in a previous explosion,” NASA wrote in the caption.

“During that event, the star became 600,000 times more luminous than our Sun. Astronomers have observed that the star will continue to change as the pulse of illumination continues to expand at the speed of light,” the space agency explained. 

Take a look at the image below: 

NASA shared the image a few hours ago and since then the post has accumulated more than 457,000 likes. In the comments section, while some users called the image incredible, others called it unreal. 

“This is so beautiful and interesting,” wrote one user. “Omg that’s unreal,” said another. “wow that’s so beautiful,” expressed a third user. “What a beautiful universe,” added a fourth user. 

Notably, during its impressive 25 years the Hubble Space Telescope has captured numerous remarkable views of the universe, providing astronomers with a wealth of data for making astounding discoveries. Earlier, NASA shared a stunning image of the outstretched arms of a large spiral galaxy about 100 million light-years away. This bright spiral galaxy also known as NGC 2441 was first seen by Wilhelm Tempel in 1882, a German astronomer with a keen eye for comets. In total, Tempel observed and documented some 21 comets, several of which were named after him, the space agency said in its blog.

The image shows the blue galaxy’s blue-tinted spiral arms emanating from the galaxy’s centre toward the right side of the image, which glows yellow-white. Galaxies and stars dot the foreground.