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The red supergiant star Antares is i of the brightest objects in the sky, and that makes it an attractive target for astronomers. Indeed, an international team of scientists has acquired an incredibly detailed image of the star — information technology's the all-time image ever of a star exterior our solar system, which could help us unravel some mysteries of stellar evolution. For now, nonetheless, it'southward but raising new questions.

Antares sits about 550 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Scorpio. It's about 12 times as massive as the sun, simply more than 700 times the diameter. That's because Antares is nearing the end of its life span — the sun too volition i twenty-four hours go a ruddy giant, merely information technology won't expand equally much every bit Antares. If Antares were in our solar system, it would extend by the orbit of Mars.

This star is a large target, so it's piece of cake to spot with conventional telescopes. That'southward not what the team used to generate this unprecedented image. Information technology comes from a series of infrared observations over the course of v days in 2014 using the European Infinite Bureau'south (ESO) Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). That'south an array consisting of all four VLT telescopes in Republic of chile that can act equally one behemothic telescope through a process called interferometry.

The team assembled the data from all its observations into the in a higher place image with enough particular to track currents in the star's temper. The presence of these currents was expected based on observations of other large stars similar Betelgeuse, but astronomers currently cannot make heads or tails of the speed at which matter is spiraling around.

An artist's impression shows the cherry-red supergiant star Antares.

Stars like Antares in the terminal stages of life are losing mass quickly, and that leads to gases spiraling effectually in ways we don't see on in our sun. Gas in Antares' temper is moving at most 12.4 miles per 2nd (20 km per second). The theoretical models don't predict this based on how we think convection (circulation driven past heating and cooling) works in the atmosphere of a reddish giant star. So, there might exist something else causing the currents to pick upwardly, or convection could simply operate differently in stars like Antares.

The researchers are now looking to figure out what is driving this process, which could improve the models used to predict the behavior of stars that are likewise far abroad or small to view in such detail. The paradigm produced by the squad is a product of algorithmic assay, not visible low-cal. Confirming this data in other means could go a long way toward solving the mystery.