Hubble image reminiscent of van Gogh's starry night

By STEVE CONNOR

Swirls of interstellar dust captured by the Hubble space telescope has provided astronomers with a stunning colour picture reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh's painting Starry Night.

Van Gogh painted his vision of a raging night sky from memory when he was in a mental asylum in Saint-Remy, whereas the real-life starry night comes from the detailed observation of a region of space some 20 light years away.

The trails and spirals of dust cover billions of miles of interstellar space as they form visually spectacular eddies and swirls similar to the movements of van Gogh's brush over the Starry Night canvass.

The Hubble telescope - a joint project between the US space agency Nasa and the European Space Agency - photographed the expanding halo of dust around a distant star called V838 Monocerotis, located on the outer edge of the Milky Way galaxy.

A gigantic explosion from a supergiant star in the middle of the image, first observed in January 2002, gave off a flashlight-like pulse of light which has illuminated the otherwise invisible dust clouds in the void of interstellar space.

This dust was probably emitted from the same stellar source some 10,000 years ago in a similar explosive event - creating a field of dust and debris that continues to expand at the speed of light from the epicentre of the explosion.

Swirls and eddies seen within the clouds are probably caused by turbulence within the fields of dust as they expand through space, according to scientists working with the Hubble telescope.

"During the outburst event, the normally faint star suddenly brightened, becoming 600,000 times more luminous than our Sun," said a Hubble spokesman.

"It was thus one of the most luminous stars in the entire Milky Way, until it faded away again in April 2002," he said.

Explosions caused by supernovae, which suddenly increase in brightness because of thermonuclear chain reactions on the surface of stars, are not unusual but the nature of this explosion, particular its deep red colour, is completely different, the spokesman said.

Astronomers expect that the echoes of the explosion will remain visible for at least the rest of the decade, creating a natural piece of performance art caused by the dust changing its appearance as it continues to propagate further into interstellar space.

The colour image, released yesterday, is composed of three different exposures through blue, green and near-infrared filters.

- INDEPENDENT