Until now, stars in other galaxies have been visible as little more than points of light, even when observed using telescopes. Now, thanks to the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), astronomers have captured the first zoomed-in image.
"We discovered an egg-shaped cocoon closely surrounding the star," said Dr Keiichi Ohnaka, an astrophysicist at the Andres Bello National University in Chile, said of observing the star: "We are excited because this may be related to the drastic ejection of material from the dying star before a supernova explosion."
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