Just when you think you have nature pretty well figgered out, it throws you a nifty curve. It’s one of the reasons that I prefer to paint from real life rather than my own imagination. Like, didja know that light can echo? That’s how the folks at the Hubble Heritage Project explain what is happening in the series of images from which the one shown was taken. While it appears that the cloud of dust and gas surrounding the red star is expanding, in reality it is not. The effect (seen better viewing the whole series) is caused by "light echo". The red giant gave off a sudden burst of intense light about three years ago, and as this light travels outward it illuminates material further and further from the star. Neat, huh?
The Hubble Heritage site is great for those times when you want to see some of the hidden beauty of God’s creation and just feel humbly grateful to live in this magical place.
Some of my favorites: Galaxy NGC 253, Thackeray’s Globules in IC 2944, and the Reflection Nebula in the Pleiades. I have been very fortunate in using my own paltry telescope and have actually viewed some nebulae, planets and star clusters with my own eyes, but you can’t beat Hubble. For one thing, the lense never fogs and you can have a nice cup-a-joe while you poke around intergalactic space. Enjoy.
Really, really pretty, Tim! I’ve bookmarked it. One of my favorites is Planetary Nebula NGC 6751. But that’s ‘cos I’m a LOTR fan!
If it is a “light echo” then the distance to the rim of the reflected particles would be farther than those seen coming from the star because of the angel. “The length of the hypotenuse is shorter than the lengths of the lines of the obtuse angel.” The light would reach the viewer after the expected years so it would seem to go slower but, it is seen to travel farther than expected, a distance of about 5 light years, in less than 8 months. So to me, the light echo theory falls flat. In fact, light takes a direct path so with the echo, the light is traveling faster than light is suspose to based on the distance it traveled. Either light travels faster than once thought (in a vacuume) or the explosion from V838 caused the particles of light to accelerate past its expected limit. Like, if a rocket could travel near the speed of light and a beam of light was aimed forward. Would the light travel faster? It was proven that light slows down when it enters water then speeds back up to its normal speed when it exits. So why is it so hard to believe that light can go faster than we once thought?