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

They might not look like stars, but they are.

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.