The star RS Puppis captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. This Cepheid variable star changes brightness by almost a factor of five every 40 days, resulting in a "light echo" on the surrounding gas and dust.
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Wonder of Science (wonderofscience@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 31-Dec-2023 10:34:24 JST Wonder of Science -
Dana Fried (tess@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 31-Dec-2023 11:48:18 JST Dana Fried @wonderofscience seeing the time-lapse at something like 2,000,000x makes you realize how slow light really is on even interstellar scales.
Spacetime seems empty and flat and smooth from our perspective, but on a galactic scale it's basically molasses.
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