The Music of Light (as sung by V838 Monoceratus) (Vivian Budnik)

The Music of Light (as sung by V838 Monoceratus)

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

This is what I understand, but please, do not quote me: In 2002, what appeared to be an inconspicuous star (it is described as inconspicuous in an article I read, but elsewhere it is referred to as a supergiant star), all of the sudden became the brightest star of the Galaxy. This behavior is sometimes seen when Novas undergo an atomic explosion, shedding material (cosmic dust and gases) to the outer space surrounding the star. Unlike Novas, however, in which their outer shell continuously expands, V838 Monoceratus' outer shell did not appear to grow. Rather, it emitted "light echos", which gave the appearance that it was expanding size. Light echos are produced because the direct light form the star reaches the earth (or the observer, I guess in this case the Hubble) first. However, light also passes through consecutive layers of the star's outer shell. Each shell layer then reflects that light, but it takes longer than the direct light to reach earth. In other words, layer after layer glows with a little delay compared to the previous one. It is like a Sound --> Echo....--> Echo....--> Echo reflecting the sound as it hits the cliffs of a mountain and in turn bounces to another cliff, and so on. SO: this is the music of light, as it repeats its interminable echo (more or less; well, probably not interminable, as it is said that, unless the star undergoes another explosion, the echos are expected to last for only a decade).

The images here were taken with the Hubble Telescope ACS camera (Advanced Camera for Survey).
Filters used by the Hubble were very many, but for this image I used data taken with F814W (Red and used as Red), F606W (Orange but used as Green), and F435 (Violet Blue, used as Blue)

Software used: PixInsight, Photoshop, and Adobe Light Room.

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and obtained from the Hubble Legacy Archive, which is a collaboration between the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI/NASA), the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF/ESA) and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC/NRC/CSA).

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