4/1/2003: v838, a cool huge star

[Elspode]

The neat thing about this image is that it is explained as being an example of a "light echo". Light emitted by the star is reflected off of different sections of the expanding dust cloud surrounding the star, causing light from those differing areas to arrive at Earth at successively later and later times. In effect, we are seeing a sort of naturally animated exploded view (no pun intended) of the star, not terribly unlike MRI's or CAT scans that show successive layers of the human body (or so I divine from reading on the image series that this shot is taken from).

Of course, you need to watch the actual animation to appreciate this, but man, this picture is awesome just by itself.