Stunning Stardust

In March, astronomers working with the Hubble Space Telescope released a breathtaking series of images that illustrate a stellar process never before seen. In January 2002, an amateur discovered an eerie dust cloud surrounding the binary system V838 Monocerotis; several months later professional astronomers decided to focus Hubble's gigantic eye on the system at regular intervals. The astronomers now think the luminous cloud is a result of brief but powerful light flashes that emanate from one of two stars in the system. The reason for the light flashes is unknown, but astronomers believe they cause the star to slough off layers of dust, which under normal conditions are too dark to see. However, as captured in the January 2002 observation, one of the stars again underwent a period of intense luminosity, temporarily making the star 600,000 times brighter than the sun. As this light flash moved outward from the star, ...