Astronomy Picture of the Day -- V838 Light Echo: The Movie

NASA ^ | June 17, 2014 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon suddenly became one of the brightest stars in the entire Milky Way Galaxy. Then, just a few months later, it faded. A stellar flash like this has never been seen before -- supernovas and novas expel a tremendous amount of matter out into space. Although the V838 Mon flash appeared to expel some material into space, what is seen in the above eight-frame movie, interpolated for smoothness, is actually an outwardly moving light echo of the flash. The actual time-span of the above movie is from 2002, when the flash was first recorded, to 2006. In a light echo, light from the flash is reflected by successively more distant ellipsoids in the complex array of ambient interstellar dust that already surrounded the star. Currently, the leading model for V838's outburst was the orbital decay and subsequent merging of two relatively normal stars. V838 Mon lies about 20,000 light years away toward the constellation of Monoceros, while the largest light echo above spans about six light years in diameter.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit: ESA, NASA, Hubble Space Telescope; Music: The Driving Force (Jingle Punks)]

[SunkenCiv]

[Warning, Blotted out Blue Language Ahead] This took about ten minutes longer than it should have, because when I was about to post in the link to the graphic, the computer just flat out shut down for no reason (98% batt), and after restart the cursor wouldn't behave -- I'm used to that, it's Windows -- which slowed me down again. What ####### in some windowless cubicle somewhere decided the OS has ESP and knows what I intend to highlight? Why was that weak-assed #### put into the OS and never removed? It's a garbage idea. No wonder these things are so cheap. It's possible to get a ten-pack of Atom-based mini-ITX boards (CPU, graphics, no RAM, no power supply) for $140 or so, and I'd suggest that's as much money as anyone should ever pay for a cheap computer. I've wondered if there's a parallel processing OS that can treat multiple boards of that kind as a single computer, that might be pretty fun (other than the cursor wandering and unscheduled shutdowns).

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[left that other site]

I LOVE that one! ;-)

[cripplecreek]

Cool video. If I understand it, what we’re seeing is the flash moving through surrounding dust and gas at light speed.

[The Cajun]

Seems to brighten right at the very end, wonder if that's due to the *interpolated for smoothness and processing* or the brightening was actual.

[G Larry]

I those situations, “I” am typically the “cursor”....

[jyro]

any ideas why the material didn’t spread equally in all directions?

[TheOldLady]

Nice one, Mr. Civilizations. I really like looking thousands of years into the past, 20,000 years this time.
It’s absolutely fascinating. I’m glad the spectacle finally arrived. Thank you for the post and ping.

Sorry about your computer troubles.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Caused by a bad burritto!