You’ll Never Guess What These Photos of Stars Actually Show!

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They might not look like stars, but they are.

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Transcript
00:00We all know what stars look like, right?
00:06But what if I told you this wild image of reds and purples, greens and yellows is actually
00:10an image captured by a telescope looking at one of them.
00:13This image was captured by one of Gemini South Telescope's newest bits of tech, the Gemini
00:17High Resolution Optical Spectrograph, or GHOST.
00:20The telescope was pointed at a star with the very catchy name HD 222925, and the image
00:26is a high resolution capture of the light being emitted by it.
00:29In every optical spectrum of light known to man, astronomers say while this is the
00:33instrument's first outing, in the future it will likely be a quote, essential component
00:37of the astronomer's toolbox.
00:38That's because the light tells us more about a star than just its composition.
00:42Science Alert reports that it can reveal the star's movement, and how it's spinning
00:45or oscillating, and the content of the light can also tell astronomers how old it is and
00:49where it came from.
00:50This star is around 1,460 light years away, and a spectral analysis has already shown
00:56that it has the most complex composition ever discovered in a star, made up of some 65 different
01:01elements, which experts say it likely formed when neutron stars collided, or after a catastrophic
01:06supernova.

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