Astronomers Capture First Close-Up of Dying Star Outside Milky Way

The red supergiant WOH G64, 160,000 light-years away, offers a rare glimpse into the final stages of a star's life before a supernova.

WOH G64, a red supergiant 2,000 times larger than the Sun, is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
This marks the first time astronomers have captured a close-up image of a star outside our galaxy using advanced interferometry techniques.
The star is surrounded by a dense, egg-shaped cocoon of gas and dust, likely caused by intense material ejection in its final life stages.
Astronomers predict WOH G64 will explode as a supernova in a few thousand years, a relatively short time in cosmic terms.
The findings, published in 'Astronomy and Astrophysics,' provide a unique opportunity to study the evolution of massive stars in real time.