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Astronomers capture detailed images of distant star

Astronomers have captured the first detailed images of the surface and atmosphere of a star outside the solar system, a…

Astronomers capture detailed images of distant star

Representational Image (PHOTO: Getty Images)

Astronomers have captured the first detailed images of the surface and atmosphere of a star outside the solar system, a report said.

Images of Antares, a red supergiant, more than 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpio, have been captured, reported Nature magazine.

The team obtained the images using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, a complex of four telescopes perched on a mountain in the Paranal desert of Chile, Efe news said.

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The star makes an interesting object for study because it is rapidly losing mass in the course of an outward expansion that will lead eventually to a supernova.

“How stars like Antares lose mass so quickly in the final phase of their evolution has been a problem for over half a century,” the paper’s lead author, Keiichi Ohnaka of Chile’s Universidad Catolica del Norte, said.

The images allowed the team to detect unexpected turbulence in the outer atmosphere of Antares — activity that could not be explained by any known processes.

“The next challenge is to identify what’s driving the turbulent motions,” Ohnaka said.

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