{"id":37907,"date":"2022-10-31T09:05:17","date_gmt":"2022-10-31T09:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/?p=113227"},"modified":"2022-10-31T09:24:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-31T09:24:08","slug":"hubble-captures-a-glowing-cosmic-orange-eye-in-time-for-halloween","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/hubble-captures-a-glowing-cosmic-orange-eye-in-time-for-halloween\/","title":{"rendered":"Hubble captures a glowing cosmic orange eye in time for Halloween"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Iain Todd\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 31 October 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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This year\u2019s Hubble Halloween image is carbon star CW Leonis, a red giant with a spooky, ethereal appearance due to its being enshrouded behind a cloak of cosmic dust.<\/p>\n

Star CW Leonis lies about 400 lightyears away in the constellation Leo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a glowing red giant star with a carbon-rich atmosphere, shedding its outer layers into space and, in the process, surrounding itself in a dense cloud of gas and dust.<\/p>\n

The process begins when an ageing star starts to run out of the hydrogen fuel necessary to keep it going.<\/p>\n

Once this happens, the star is no longer pushing outwards to counter the effect of its own gravity, and it begins to collapse in on itself.<\/p>\n

A shell of plasma surrounding the star\u2019s core heats up and the star\u2019s outer layers expand into space, ejecting huge amounts of gas and dust as they do so.<\/p>\n