New image throws light on the final days of giant stars
The violent death throes of rare hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris have been captured in a new 3D image. The model, created using data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA), shows the motion of gas surrounding the star in unprecedented detail.
VY Canis Majoris is one of only a few known red hypergiants. Unlike lower-mass stars, which retain their spherical shape during their red giant phase, these goliaths sporadically belch out material, forming complex, irregular structures.
“Until now, only small portions of this enormous structure had been studied, but you can’t understand the mass loss and how these big stars die unless you look at the entire region,” says Lucy Ziurys from the University of Arizona, who led the study. “That’s why we wanted to create a complete image.” www.almaobservatory.org
NASA/ESA/Hubble/R. Humphreys/University of Minnesota, J. Olmsted/ STScI, NASA/JPL-Caltech/B. Jónsson