First Close-Up Image of a Star Outside the Milky Way Recorded

Astronomers have captured the first precise image of a star outside our galaxy using the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory. This massive star, identified scientifically as 'Woh G64', is located 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The images show a close-up of a dying star outside the Milky Way for the first time. The new image reveals that this star, a red supergiant 2,000 times larger than the sun, is expelling gas and dust in the final stages of its life before becoming a supernova. Scientists also noticed an 'egg-shaped cocoon' around the star, which may be due to intense material ejection. This star has significantly dimmed over the past decade, and its changes provide a unique opportunity to study the final stages of stellar life. This discovery, aided by the advanced 'Gravity' instrument, helps scientists better understand the complex processes of dying stars and may yield more details about this star in the future with updated tools. The recorded details in these images show that this star is in the last stages of becoming a supernova (complete explosion and destruction), with massive amounts of gas and dust being emitted. These images, along with the results of research on the status of this star, were published on Wednesday, December 7, in the monthly journal 'Astronomy and Astrophysics'. Kichi Ohnaka, an astrophysics professor at Andres Bello University in Chile and the head of this research, told reporters, 'We discovered an egg-shaped cocoon around this star. It is very exciting because this phenomenon may be related to the ejection of a massive volume of material before the final explosion and transformation of the star into a supernova.' Although dozens of very close images of stars in the Milky Way have been captured in recent decades, photographing stars outside our galaxy has been a significant challenge until now. The star 'Woh G64' is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the smaller galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. Astronomers discovered this star several decades ago and aptly named it 'supergiant'. Its size is nearly two thousand times that of the sun, which is why it is classified among the burning celestial bodies and supergiants. The research group led by Kichi Ohnaka has been conducting ongoing research on this star for about 20 years, but capturing images of it has not been possible until now. To photograph this star, the research group had to wait for the second-generation 'Gravity' equipment of the large space telescope at the European Southern Observatory to be completed. They have concluded from comparing the new images with previous observations that the star 'Woh G64' has gradually dimmed over the past few decades. Gerd Weigelt, a professor of astronomy at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and one of the authors of the research, said, 'We found that this star has undergone significant changes in the last 10 years, and this is a unique opportunity to track changes as they occur.' The research group believes that the rapid ejection of materials in the form of gas and dust is likely the cause of the star's dimming and the egg-shaped cocoon that has formed around it. The new images show that the cocoon containing gas and dust has elongated significantly and is very different from what was previously imagined based on earlier observations and computer modeling. Researchers speculate that the current shape of the cocoon is either due to the ejection of gas and dust from within the star or the influence of an unknown star nearby. As this star dims, capturing more images of it in the future will become even more challenging, even with the large telescope of the European Southern Observatory. However, the continued modernization of this telescope's equipment, known as the 'Gravity Plus' project, may soon allow for more images of this dying star to be captured. Tracking the fate of this star and recording its changes is of great importance to astronomers.