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Here’s a shocking star discovery.

Astronomers captured this image of a stunning shock wave around a dead star — a shock wave that, according to all known mechanisms, “shouldn’t be there.”

“We found something never seen before and, more importantly, entirely unexpected,” said co-lead author of the study, Simone Scaringi. “The surprise that a supposedly quiet, discless system could drive such a spectacular nebula was one of those rare ‘wow’ moments.”

The central square image, taken with the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, shows shock waves around the dead star RXJ0528+2838. When a star moves through space it can push away nearby material creating a so-called bow shock, which in this image is glowing in red, green and blue.
This image taken with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope shows the shock waves around the dead star (RXJ0528+2838) manipulated in red, green, and blue, to represent hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, respectively.
Image by ESO | K. Iłkiewicz and S. Scaringi et al
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