Here Is A Beautiful Image Of A Star Called ESO 577-24 By The VLT

On January 22, 2019, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) published an absolutely beautiful image of the star named ESO 577-24. The star is known to reside approximately 1,400 light years away from the Earth. It has become an intensely hot dwarf star instead of a red giant like before, which is surrounded by a stunning glowing gas cloud called a planetary nebula. This cloud will continue to expand into space and slowly fade from view after the death of the star.

It is known that stars also evolve like organisms on the Earth. In the red phase, the stars are evolving after the hydrogen fuel has disappeared out of their core.

The red giant starts to contract under the crushing grip of gravity at this stage of the life cycle. The immense pressure reignites the core of the star, making it throw off the outer layers. At that moment, the star’s core is extremely hot, so it emits ultraviolet radiation which ionizes the outer layers and makes them shine. The result is what we can see as a planetary nebula (or PN for short) in the new image of the ESO.

Here is the marvellous moment saying that a star has gone.

This planetary nebula has been known to surround the ESO 577-24 since the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey of the National Geographic Society discovered it in the 1950s.

The Chile-based Very Large Telescope captured this extremely beautiful picture of the planetary nebula ESO 577-24 as part of the ESO’s Cosmic Gems Programme. This programme aims to produce stunning images with high quality that the European Southern Observatory is able to use for the purpose of public outreach and education like this absolutely beautiful vision of a dying star.