Header Ads

Astronomers Get to the Heart of Mira A's Latest Outburst

February 18, 2026
Astronomers Get to the Heart of Mira A's Latest Outburst
By Carolyn Collins Petersen (https://ift.tt/rdCEafP)

One of the most famous red giants in the sky is called Mira A, part of the binary system Mira which lies about 400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cetus, the Whale. This ALMA image shows the shape of Mira A's escaping outer layers. Credit: ESO/S. Ramstedt (Uppsala University, Sweden) & W. Vlemmings (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)

Just a few hundred light-years from Earth, the famous variable star Mira A is huffing and puffing its outer layers to space. Its most recent mass-loss event ejected more material at higher velocity than in past events. A team of astronomers led by Theo Khouri, Chalmers University in Sweden discovered two large clouds of material expanding away from Mira A in observations done by the Very Large Telescope and ALMA telescopes in South America in 2015 and 2023. Those clouds form two lobes of a cosmic "heart" shape surrounding the star. That structure is basically a cloud of dust at the edges, filled by gas from the star.



February 18, 2026 at 11:53PM
via read more...

Post a Comment

No comments

Subscribe to: Post Comments ( Atom )
Powered by Blogger.